blackberry picking

The largest blackberry I have ever picked was the size of my thumb. It was one summer when I was out of school and just returned from a year in Corpus Christi Texas. Our home was at the foot of a mountain and the berries were behind the house, partly in the shade. I have never again seen any that size but I have seen some large ones and this was that day.

This morning at nine o'clock I met my neighbor up at the "gate" which is really gone now . We had a date to pick blueberries at a neighbors house. I had a large market basket but alas, it did not hold any blueberries today. Since those plans fell through I suggested we look for berries. We found plenty of them along the side of the road where she parked her car and the picking began. Those are the tallest berry plants I have ever seen, at least 10 feet tall and arching all over. The canes were red and very stout looking with thorns aplenty ! She had a green bucket and after a bit of stretching and reaching we were joined by Joe, her neighbor who was out for a morning walk. He began to pick and eat, calling it his breakfast. By the time the bottom of my basket was covered with both black and some black and red berries, I heard my friend give a squeal and jump back onto the road. She had suffered the bane of every Georgian. Not watching where she was walking she had stepped into a fire ant hill. She began shedding shoes and brushing her legs and making some very distressing noises. There was nothing to do but quit the place and get her home and some relief for those bites. She was concerned that I had not picked enough berries to make jelly so she gave me what she had picked and I gladly accepted !!.

Leaving her at the "gate" to her own way of dealing with her problem, I drove my golf cart up to the house. Inside I began right away to cull the berries, spray water over the lot and leave them in a collander as I had an appointment in Gainesville to have my hair "done".

By the time I got back home and had a bite of lunch the berries were sufficiently drained to go into my juicer. I have only had this M-J juicer for about 43 years. It has a history of its own but still works well enough for me to extract almost 4 cups of juice from those berries. With this task out of the way, I began to assemble the jars, lids, sugar, pectin, lemons and several tongs to finish the job.
Suffice it to say I now have 6 cups of blackberry jelly all properly sealed and cooling on a rack. I know it is super good jelly as I had about 2 tablespoons left in the bottom of the big pot. Did you know blackberry jelly is really good spread on a soda cracker ??? Well it is.

I hope I can go picking again on Saturday as I need some juice to go with the pint of frozen berry juice in my deep freeze. I know there are plenty left where I was today and I remember a spot down at the park near here. When my children were small we would always be on the lookout for berry plants when we went picnicing, making mental notes to return in June. They may have outgrown the lure of berry picking but I have not. I just have not found any blackberry jelly at the market which is as rich and satisfying as my own. Yet, it may really be the journey of the hunt which makes it all worthwhile.