old fashioned?

[BUFFS]

we went down through a local pathway today and picked loads of blackberries, they were everywhere alongside the path, plants were loaded with fruit and in half an hour we picked enough for seven one litre ice cream tubs (gone into the freezer) and left the rest, does nobody pick blackberries any more?, they obviously don't round here, and the icing on the cake was when a man walked past carrying a heavy bag and he asked if we wanted some apples to go with them as he had found an old orchard(where the old hospital used to be) and had collected loads of cookers, now what are the chances of us using the same day and meeting up?, I know the apple and blackberry pies we get from this lot will be lovely and also free.....happy days...

[Kirk]

I see quite a few around this neck of the woods collecting them.
Two people yeaterday were, I recall one was having trouble getting to the higher ones.
Usally it seems to be one or two, not groups. However quite a steady number do so.

Must fill in the bits to say where I am, S Cambs/N Herts.
First have to find the bits to edit.

[BUFFS]

if my granddaughter doesn't see it in mcdonalds she wouldn't touch it, sad but true, and its her loss and at that age when she knows everything and nobody else knows what they are talking about, we used to make a day of it when we were young, the whole family would go on bikes , with drinks and sandwiches and tubs to collect the fruit in (that was the pudding) and soon we had a couple of my friends and some of my sisters so it was a fantastic day out and no telling what you might find,we found a desert cherry tree one time and scoffed the lot...

[Scarlet]

I always went picking with my Dad, we used buckets! He's in a wheelchair now, but he still goes down the lanes, with a bag hanging on the arm of his chair and a long stick...he then comes home makes the pies and gives them too his neighbours! Keeps him happy...

[bramble]

I pick them every year. This year there has been a great crop. I have picked about 25 lbs so far, they are all in the freezer waiting to make bramble jelly.

[Nicos]

I used to go blackberry picking with my grandma along the canal banks...Welles and old anorak so we weren't torn to shreds!
Fond memories of apple and blackberry steamed sponge pudding and thick Birds custard!

Not had a chance to go blackberrying yet this year...but our hedgerows are full of them too!

[catgirl]

I did this last year and ate loads... then found a little worm crawling along one of them one day and lost my appetite for them. I think the problem is that few people know whether they're safe to eat anymore. I'm the same with some trees that look exactly like huge cherry trees, and it bears loads of fruit every year. But I don't know whether it is a dessert cherry tree and thus whether the cherries would be safe to eat, so every year I leave them all to the birds.

[FB.]

When I was a child, there were some abandoned allotments (the allotments were eventually built on during the 1980s).
I think they were abandoned because grow-your-own had fallen a bit out of favour, the soil was mostly chalk and therefore difficult to grow many plants (and not much rain nor moisture retention).
But a few fruit plants managed to cling onto life among the grass and nettles.
My parents would send me out to gather gooseberries - the plants somehow managed to survive weed competition, neglect, sawfly, very chalky/alkaline soil and regular summer droughts - yet still produced a reasonable crop!
There were blackberries/brambles too. Not many fruit trees though.

[yummersetter]

You've got it the wrong way round, catgirl. The fruit with a live worm on it is probably much safer to eat than the perfect, bug-free one that's been sprayed to perfection.

As to knowing what's edible, do you have a kid brother/sister to use as a scapegoat? I expect that was the historical way.

[catgirl]

You've got it the wrong way round, catgirl. The fruit with a live worm on it is probably much safer to eat than the perfect, bug-free one that's been sprayed to perfection.

As to knowing what's edible, do you have a kid brother/sister to use as a scapegoat? I expect that was the historical way.

LOL! Is all I can say to that. You're probably right about the worms though!

[Verinda]

I used to go blackberry picking with my mum. She was a pro, she used to wear wellies and a good solid pair of rubber trousers and a coat and just wade through the blackberry bushes picking every possible berry. She used to make a wonderful summer pudding every Christmas! Fab with cream.

There are so many blackberries this year I think I will just have to make a summer pudding this Christmas too

[Dorothy rouse]

We had loads near our plots, I picked lots last year, this year I am too late, all GONE. Managed a few from car park by plot, but that's it. I'll have to search out some further afield, were all very early this year. Think I've missed out.

[Jeanied]

Well in my local park I have found some puffball fungi and some field mushrooms. Luckily I have found out on the internet and via a friend's advice not to use any that have holes or maggots in them - and how to search for them. Any day now I will forage a delicious breakfast!

[Noosner]

I've found an amazingly good spot this year, on some ground behind our local pub. I don't THINK it's their garden... for some reason the berries there are prolific, juicy and largely unpicked by anyone else. I've had three sessions there now and have already made more jelly - plain bramble and bramble and elderberry - than we're likely to eat before this time next year. YUM!

[BUFFS]

as for any worms/maggots, we were taught to put half a teaspoon of salt into the sink, put some boiling water on it , stir and the fill the sink with cold water, we then put the fruit in and lay a cloth over them, leave for a couple of hours and take out handfuls and rinse under running cold water, any wrigglers were left in the water, anyway , whats wrong with a bit of protein?, you would pay dear to eat them in a oriental restaurant, and I hate to think what we ate in the army, including snakes, which are just big wrigglers...