The Blackberry Patch

Sometimes even the most invasive of weeds can be forgiven its aggressive ways. For my part, every year at the end of summer I forgive brambles, wholeheartedly. Just now they are heavy with their big, sweet berries that are readily available to anyone who takes the time to pick them.

Many of us have our favourite bramble patches that we swear have the biggest, sweetest, and most abundant berries. I believe the same of our patch. My son Lucas was the first to discover this patch when we first moved to Victoria from Vancouver a couple of years ago. It is on the side of a road in an open field near the ocean, and it provides us with as many berries as we can pick, or in Abby's case, as many berries as she can eat.


This year my mom and sister and I went out with all of our five children. Not counting the three or four pounds of blackberries we ate while we picked, we came back with about eight pounds of blackberries, which was enough to make eight large jars of jam, to freeze a bunch for smoothies over the winter, and for my sister to make a delicious blackberry peach cobbler for dessert that evening.


Blackberry picking is a yearly ritual shared by many of us on the islands and lower mainland, filling our cupboards with jams and jellies enough to last the winter. This of course is a testament to the amount of disturbed open areas that have succumbed to the bramble, which for most of the year is just a mean and thorny vine. But, for its part, it provides us with wonderful berries that we can pick, can, freeze and bake with, all without spending even a penny.