Blackberry picking has become somewhat of a family tradition every summer in my family. My Aunt Roxann and Uncle Bob live on a farm in Shelbyville in a beautiful cabin surrounded by nothing but farmland and woods. It’s a relatively short drive from our house but once you arrive there you feel like you are a million miles away (my kind of place!).
Aunt Roxann and Uncle Bob have had this amazing blackberry patch in front of the cabin for gosh, ten or fifteen years? They started it for the sole purpose of having friends and family come to the farm and pick blackberries each summer. We go every year and it’s one of my favorite events each year. I think I enjoy blackberry picking because it reminds me of being a little girl, being at my grandparents’ farm each summer and going to Memaw’s vegetable garden along with my mom and Aunt Roxann. To me, being very little, that garden seemed HUGE, but I wonder if it was a large as what I remember. We would go out in the evening and pick tomatoes, green beans, snap peas, broccoli, potatoes, and more. We would come inside and wash everything off and my mom would then soak the broccoli in salt water because of the little worms that might be on the broccoli. Then we would snap green beans for what felt like forever. I remember the sound of the beans when they were snapped.
There is something so therapeutic about working in a garden in the evening, whether it be vegetables, fruit, berries, whatever. It’s quiet and sometimes not unbearably hot, especially with a breeze. We usually go blackberry picking right around 7:30 pm and pick until dark. That sounds like a long time, I know, but this is a pretty large blackberry patch. We go up and down the long rows, talking and laughing with each other as we go. Of course we contend with birds’ nests in the blackberries, numerous bugs and bees, and this year we even had gourds growing into the blackberries!
We say the same things every year: “No matter how many times you cover the same area, there are always blackberries you miss on all of your previous trips down the row!”, “God, it’s hot!”, “Yum!” (this is usally me because I eat as a pick!), “I’m not tall enough to reach,” (except for my brother who is 6’3″), and “How many did you pick?”
While always trying to pick the darkest of berries, inevitably you get some that are still a little reddish on the side that doesn’t get as much sun. Blackberry problems. Last year was an exceptional year — U.B. and A.R. had a total of 200 gallons of blackberries picked that summer. The night we were there we picked 7.5 gallons, but they purposefully didn’t pick the night before so we would have plenty to pick.
I love that time with my family — my brother, Jake, Uncle Bob and Aunt Roxann. We usually go inside after getting whatever we need to pick from the garden and go inside for some kind of blackberry-inspired kind of dessert. Sometimes it’s blackberry cobbler. Other times it has been vanilla bean ice cream with blackberry sauce. This year was a new one — blackberry and peach pie which, while may not sound so good was AMAZING. The flavors go very well together, along with a hint or cinnamon and nutmeg, and vanilla bean ice cream is optional.
If you haven’t ever been blackberry picking, or any kind of berry picking, really, get the family together and go. It’s the perfect season and such a nice family activity. I do recommend going in the early morning or late afternoon before it gets too hot and dress appropriately. I usually wear long pants to keep the bugs away because we pick in the evening, and once it’s shady, the mosquitoes come out in droves. If you don’t have any memories of outdoor fun you had as a kid, you are creating those memories for your children that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.
