Picking Blackberries

At Last!! We have berries.  Last year we could only pick about a cup full. Our blackberries just did not fruit.

Melva grading berries for muffins, jelly and buckles

Between Sunday and this morning we picked about 12.5 litres of the beautiful dark fruit.
We have two wild varieties here. One with white blossoms fruits over Christmas.  The other (Mauve blossoms) starts fruiting at the end of January. So in a good year we have blackberries from about the 20th December to the end of February.
We fill the freezer. Melva makes jetty, jam, muffins, buckles and deserts. One of the best is blackberry and rhubarb crumble. We get enough to last the year from our patch. If it is a good year that is. It really is a bit warm in the north for blackberries. They grow well but fruit can dry on the canes due to the heat.