Blackberries

 Bramble also known as blackberry  

(Rubus fruticosus)

Blackberry, one of the most commonly collected wild foods. You can’t go wrong with a blackberry, all wild fruit that looks like a blackberry is edible. Now many people think it’s just the fruit that we can collect, but there’s far more than just the fruit to bramble. My favourite bit is the young stems that can be harvested late spring and early summer and turned into delicious starshaped pickles. 

When a blackberry grows the stems bend over and then touch ground and send out roots, the following year from where it’s just rooted it will send out a long new shoot, those shoots are what we collect at the end of May, beginning of June, they're bright green and flexible. when collecting you want to snap them where they naturally snap this removed the woody stem brush of the prickles and then you can pickle them I slice them thinly and leave in a jar of vinegar for about three weeks

You can also make tea from the leaves, they are quite bitter and rich in tannin, it’s good for helping things like sore throats, mouth ulcers and it’s also good as an anti-diarrhoea. Natures tasty, Imodium! 

The leaves are also quite good in pickles, so if you make your own piccalilli etc then pop a leaf in with your pickle and it will help to keep your vegetables crunchy.

Identifying features for blackberry

• Often found growing in hedgerows and Woodlands in mounds, or climbing up tall shrubs for the light

• Leaves, come in threes, there is a top leaf and then to opposite pairs. Leaves are teardrop shaped with serrated edges and prickles along the underside vein.

• Stems have sharp prickles on them, and are star shaped

• The flowers are white, usually having five petals and yellowish anthers

• The berries are made up of clusters of little round fruits, and have a white central path that attaches them all together. The very start of green becoming red and reach ripeness when they are black.

If you have all of these features, it’s likely you have a blackberry

Lookalike for blackberries

• raspberries they’re not as prickly and the fruit is ripe when it’s red

• Dewberry which has a more wavy edged leaf and the fruits have a more bluish colour to them