Backyard Blackberries

Do you love farm fresh blackberries?

Try backyard blackberries!

Since this was only our second summer in the house, we hadn't quite figured out everything that was going on by berry season last year. We found this tiny patch of berries right by the path to the backyard:

A bit hard to see, but there are three meager bushes around those stakes. They are right in the sun and gave maybe 5 stunted berries last year. (and this year, so they'll be coming out!)

There was also this patch right by the basement door:

Which seemed to have promise, but a turtle living under the ferns regularly beat me to the ripe berries, so I was under the impression that maybe this bush was a kind of bad raspberry bush (because, of course, under-ripe blackberries do look a bit like raspberries.)

But this year Hubby found a new stash!

Which we completely missed last year because it's over in the wild part of the yard, which is the part where the mosquitoes live. And when I say that, I don't say it lightly. If you step under those trees with no protection other than bugspray, you will be eaten alive. They don't stop to sniff you before they attack!

So I put on my jeans, galoshes, trench coat and hat and headed out for the harvest!

And what a bounty!

All last week I got at least one little bowl full of berries a day.
I thought, "How cool would it be to make a dessert with berries from our own backyard?"
Of course as I was thinking this I was munching away, and by the time I was back to the sink to wash the sand off the berries from the low branches, I'd munched away 3/4 of the catch! Oops...