For the first few years living in our house, I tried to keep the briars and brambles in the back garden cut back in the name of tidyness. But for the last few years, I’ve let them grow. The resulting thicket provides good cover for the small birds that visit the garden, but more importantly, provide a great source of blackberries. The back garden is quite sheltered, so the berries appear early, and often. Since late August, I’ve gone to the back of the garden every day to collect a handful of berries, which I then freeze.
The supply of berries is beginning to fade now, so I don’t have many harvests left. We had visitors over on Sunday, so my wife decided to bake a blackberry pie (which was delicious). The picture is of some of the berries spread out on a plate to defrost on sunday morning. These berries were picked in late August or early September so were a bit red and sharp-tasting.