30/08/2026
Sea grapes, cocoplumbs ,guineps, tamarind, almond, guava, mango, soursop, june plumb, pawpaw,cherry, coconut….sorry for those of you I have missed but likely you made up a piece of me.
I was lucky to grow up In what was my garden of Eden, surrounded by trees, bushes, shrubs that gave and gave and I loved them all well.
We came back to England, I was bereft, the land felt cold. Where to meet those generous ones, how to taste this place.
Then I met blackberry, I learnt her ways in thorny thickets tattered and torn, to find her soft sweetness. She showed me her kin too and things began to change.
Today i headed to the hills to forage the snaked boundaries and found the sweetest most perfect berries to fill my basket. Inked hands full of joyful fiddle, not a scratch, not a drop of blood as exchange.
Forage wide my friends, teach the young ones, fill your freezer, make vinegars and syrups for sore throats and warm wintery cordials. Some places have blueberries we have abundant blackberries. They have thrived through this hot summer.
And so many subspecies it’s hard to tell them apart but you can taste them in their fruits; some perfumed, sweet, sour, big small but don’t wait until after 29th September St Michaels day. When the devil fell from heaven and landed on a blackberry bush. In rage he spat a curse to ruin the fruit. Later fruits taste bad and may be fly blown so it does sound right. And then we have the stories of brambles hunting sheep ?
Praise be to blackberry in all her guises - protector, nourisher, resilient one, dragon, feeder, hunter , explorer friend, home.
Find clean spots and above the dog wee line .
