It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!
When these blossoms appear. It means blackberries are on the way!
Blackberries grow wild here in Virginia, just as they do in many parts of the U.S. The blossoms appear around mid-May green clusters develop soon after and then by mid-June or so, those cluster start to ripen into berries. They delicious, plentiful and free! The only draw back. They have lots of prickly thorns.
Despite the thorns, they're worth the effort of picking because they make wonderful jam. I forage for as many as possible because they're only around for a month or so before they disappear...
After years of fighting the thorns, insects and heat while foraging for wild blackberries, we decided it was time to make things a little easier on ourselves and plant some thornless ones. We now have a variety of these: Triple crown, Arapaho and Chester. These cultivated berries tend to be larger and their growing season seems to be a bit longer than those of the wild ones. They're prolific producers but best of all - no thorns!
There's nothing so satisfying as growing your own food. Blackberries are hardy and easy to grow and provide lots of nutrition.
Every spring we have blackberry plants available. Click below to reserve yours so you can produce some of your own food!
Our fruit consumption over the summer is comprised largely of the blueberries and blackberries we grow.
We also freeze some for use later in the year.
...and of course we use them to make jam.
