Saw my first black blackberries of the year on my walk back from the station yesterday, although they weren't yet ready to be be picked (I tried).
Is it just me, or are they earlier than usual this year?
Last edited by: Focusless on Sat 10 Aug 13 at 21:24
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The ones you saw are, the ones I have seen are not that advanced. Its a strange year, some stuff has done well, strawberries for example, other stuff not so. My pear tree is so heavily cropped I have had to prop its limbs - first time ever.
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Out walking with the dog this afternoon, there seemed to be masses of blackberries - and the first ones were ripening. I picked a juicy looking one and glanced down - a maggot had beaten me to it :-(
I didn't have time to try another as my wife and the dog were leaving me behind.
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>> Out walking with the dog this afternoon, there seemed to be masses of blackberries -
>> and the first ones were ripening. I picked a juicy looking one and glanced down
>> - a maggot had beaten me to it :-(
>>
>> I didn't have time to try another as my wife and the dog were leaving
>> me behind.
My dog would never leave me behind if it thought i was messing about with food.....
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"My dog would never leave me behind if it thought i was messing about with food....."
I'm afraid our old lab has learned that it's more productive to look for the remains of sarnies tossed out by lorry drivers than frat about with blackberries ......
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Coming back from the airport last Tuesday we saw black blackberries at the side of the motorway sliproad. But the ones nearer us are not quite ready to be picked. Our cooking apples are ripening earlier than previously too.
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Thought this was about the phone!
Masses near us but not quite ripe, a few weeks maybe. i sooooo love blackberries with apple, I check each morning when I take the dog out for walk. Massive apple tree in our garden, looks like a vast crop this year, last year was pathetic.
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Wouldn't mess about with brambles. The cultivated varieties are bigger, tastier and a lot easier to pick.
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Because of the cold start to the year it's supposedly going to be a bumper year for soft fruit, my raspberries & tayberries are weighed down with ripe fruit, even my usually poor performing gooseberry bush has fruit on it.
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The only thing holding stuff back here is lack of water - hardly rained in eight weeks
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>>hardly rained in eight weeks
What part of Spain do you live in CGNorwich.
:}
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"What part of Spain do you live in CGNorwich."
July rainfall in the nearby village of Buxton was 14.7mm or 24.9% of annual average. August has so far given us 17.7mm of an average of 67mm.
I take it its a bit damper where you are!
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>>I take it its a bit damper where you are!
Well, you get used to it after 15 years but, it makes you appreciate the fair-weather days ... all 3 of them.
Cue for a tune: www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5FG3Ty3jD4
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>> Because of the cold start to the year it's supposedly going to be a bumper
>> year for soft fruit,
Sprouts as well.
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breakingnews/offbeat/bumper-crop-of-brussels-sprouts-29486239.html
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Been eating them, for a fortnight!
Last edited by: jc2 on Sun 11 Aug 13 at 07:43
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>> Been eating them, for a fortnight!
Not playing top trumps with you then.
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>> my raspberries & tayberries are weighed down with ripe fruit,
I've lost quite a few of my raspberries. I just haven't been able to get to the allotment in time to pick them. The plot is on a south facing hill. The heat has ripened them extremely quickly and many started to go mouldy, though I've still picked plenty. Fortunately there are more on the way. I had a good crop last year too, I find raspberries extremely tough and able to put up with poor weather.
My thornless blackberries are superb, and I've had the best crop of redcurrants I've ever had. They are like glowing red marbles and taste divine.
Lady next to my plot always wonders how I get such good fruit compared to her raspberries. I keep telling her to get loads of manure around the bases but she never puts enough on. Most of hers died this year and she was asking me what type mine were. I don't have the heart to tell her it's because she didn't water the damn things - just because they are established doesn't mean they don't dry out in 30 plus degrees, and the soil here is free draining and stony.
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I saw someone picking blackberries near here yesterday - all the ones I've seen have a way to go yet.
It's unusual to see someone French picking them - the natives think the Brits are weird for eating weeds.
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My story about blackberries is that it was how I detected that my son was colour blind, when we went picking he would always bring me back the berries that where still a red colour rather than ripe black, I gradually put two and two together and the next time he had an eye test I asked if they could do those funny hidden number charts, this showed he has a blue/purple deficancey which is unusual so I'm told, now I also realise why he doesn't have any blue clothes, and all because of some good old blackberries!!
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Picked 12kg of rasps so far.
No blackberries ripe here.
First two potato plants dug gave 4.6kgs of tatties... going to start giving them away.
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How's about growing spuds in a greenowse, is that a goer or a no-go?
Reason I ask is that neighb gave us some out of her greenowse but they turned to water when I cooked em.
Shirley taters must be planted/grown outside, like.
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Too hot and humid in greenhouse.
Have a record crop of tomatoes in mine... hardly conditions for potatoes..
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Of course you can grow potatoes in a greeenhouse, in fact a cold greenhouse is ideal to get a really early crop of new potatoes, Start them in a big tub round about mid March and you will be eating new potatoes at the end of June.
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Neighb is a farmer so she should know a thing or 2 about agroculture ;)
It's just that the Cornish new potatoes we buy from the supermarket, covered in dirt, cook up okay whereas neighbs little clean spuds grown in her greenhouse wouldn't win any prizes for taste or texture.
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>> .... those funny hidden number charts.....
Ishihara.
Named after the man: Shinobu Ishihara.
Meanwhile, thornless cultivated blackberries here (Midlands), are red.
A couple of sunny weeks with rainy nights to fill them up a bit more should be the start of the crop.
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Picked a few blackberries in Surrey this weekend. Precious few, mind.
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Blackberries - Zero
