Blackberries and Visitors - my first post in a long time!
It’s blackberry season in Tennessee, and much to our family’s delight, we’ve discovered that our property (and the adjoining ones for sale) is scattered with many thickets of wild blackberry bushes!
Before now, I had never gone blackberry picking in my life. In New York the fruit season consisted of strawberries in June (only the first two weeks), blueberries all throughout July and part of August, and lastly, we had apples in the Fall. I remember blackberries being expensive and somewhat rare in the grocery stores, but here they seem to grow wild all over the place!
Two days ago, with a little bit of help, we picked about a gallon of these berries - we’re going to fill up our freezer pretty soon!
Oh yes! Here I must pause with my ramblings on blackberries to congratulate our friends on being our second visitors thus far (Aunt Frances beat them to it), and our first visitors from Virginia! You may remember our friends from the pictures at Appomattox Courthouse. We invited them on many occasions for them to come pay us a visit once we had a house, and we’re so glad they took us up on that offer! It was only a short stay, just one night, but we had a lovely time together all the same.
Unfortunately it did rain most of the time, but we plunged bravely through the scattered showers together in order to give our guests a tour of the land. We had a lot fun along the way (getting caught in the rain is always an adventure!), and we brought deli buckets with us and picked many, many blackberries!
…Which brings me back to where I left off; blackberries. They are very juicy, black, sweet at the first taste, and slightly bitter at the end. The thorns and brier patches surrounding every bush are painful; we can all testify to that, and you could see for yourself if you ever examined our hands at this point. 
Right now I’m thinking about pie; blackberry pie for our future guests, parties and special occasions. (yummm!) Do any of our readers have recipes they’re willing to share? We’re definitely going to try a few this summer, and depending on how long the blackberries last, in the Fall too. (we’ll have to see about that…)
That’s all for now folks. God bless your day! And huzzah for my first post in TN! (I’m so glad we have internet again!)
-Kasie
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Filed under: Family News, Odds and Ends on July 2nd, 2008
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hmmm…let’s see… I, being a thoroughly southern cook, have many many recipes pertaining to blackberries…4-berry pie, black berry cobbler, I think I’ve even got a recipe for some sort of black berry ice cream…not sure on that one. I’ll look for you!
Fire ‘em at me! I know how to do a blackberry cobbler, I was just wondering the best way for a pie. I’d like to try one for the 4th of July. Yikes! that’s tomorrow!
Anyways, you can email me when you get around to it.
(I’m so not Southerner yet! Never made a blackberry pie in my life! I see I have much to learn…)
That sounds wonderful! I love berry picking, and although blackberries are not the most fun to pick, I think they are certainly the most fun to eat! What a blessing to have so many of them!
Some yummy fun!
Oh! That is so exciting to find berries growing on your OWN property! It’s like a gift from heaven! Grandmama and Grandaddy Frodge (where we spend 1/2 our time) have blackberries on their property.
One nice dessert to make with them is a pastry with Athens Filo dough. (found in the freezer section) It’s very easy. Just spread butter between the layers and place blackberries and sugar and maybe cinnamon in the middle, fold the edges in, roll it all up, make air holes in the top like in a pie, and bake! Sometimes we add nuts. It looks fancy, which is fun for company!
We’re glad you all are settled in your new house. Congratulations!
Hmmm! That sounds yummy Discher family - thanks for sharing that! It sounds like a similar concept used to make baklava, our favorite Christmastime treat. I’ll definitely have to try that!
We seriously have a lot of blackberries… And the unoccupied land next to ours (which is for sale) has a LOT more!
I think this is the first time we’ve experienced “reaping what we have not sowed”…..