How to Pick Blackberries in Your Yard
August 4 
First, buy a property that's been allowed to grow wild for some years. Then, become overwhelmed with moving, writing, parenting and life for a year or so, and ignore the problem. In early spring, when you notice that the blackberry patch has encroached on your ability to reach the compost pile behind the barn, take a pair of snips and hack down a lot of the canes. Cut anything that's dead, or in your way or leaning over. We'll call that pruning.
Ignore the blackberry patch further. Don't use any commercial fertilizer, don't bother with mulch, and don't stake up the plants. This style of cultivation is called uber lazy hyper organic.
When the plants flower, take a few pretty pictures, wave to the
bees and other little pollinators and step aside. It's okay to actually curse the blackberry plants a little bit. You'll want to, because they spring up in your tomato garden, in your driveway, and even through the boards of your deck. They are weeds, and they have thorns.
When beautiful black purple fruit matures, put on old clothes. I literally used a tee shirt from my rag pile. Choose long sleeves even though it's hot outside, because it's better for those thorns to prick your shirt than your arm. Don't forget socks.
It's so quiet where I live that when I put my little cardboard quart container on the grass, I can hear the little blades bending underneath its weight. Pick only the darkest berries (this photo is pretty but somehow makes my berries look underripe, which they are not.) And if a berry looks tight and skinny, leave that one until tomorrow too.
Pick every day. Eat. Enjoy.
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Reader Comments (4)
Food plants that grow like weeds are the best! (Until they're the worst and take over the world.) I love that it's so quiet where you live that you hear the grass bend.
Yes! Edible weeds are something I'm learning to love. My husband has just discovered Purslane, and likes to nibble while he weeds...
Love it! This is totally how I (ahem) "cultivate" the blackberries at the bottom of our property. Who am I kidding--this is how I cultivate most things around here. Except this year I (cough cough) "pruned" the blackberries by penning the goats over the patch. The brambles did not appreciate the attention, and responded by refusing to do anything but make fresh leaves and branches this year. Not even a single flower. Talk about lazy.
Oh no! I'm surprised the goats went near them. Some of those thorns are fairly intense. Maybe you'll get a bumper crop next year?