raw food Recipes # ingredients # blackberries

Ingredients # blackberries

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus)

In the UK wild blackberries can be picked in August and September. Go for good quality fruit from sunny positions. I'm tall so this helps! Avoid roadsides, agricultural areas that may have been sprayed, and low down berries that dogs can get at!
They are very easy to freeze so do pick some extra for this. If you do this regularly you will soon have a good supply for the winter.
Freeze them as soon as you get home. I don't wash them, but I do spread them over a clean kitchen towel to dry off, if they are wet. Discard any dubious looking ones then spread then out over a sheet and freeze quickly. I use the mesh from a dehydrator tray for this so that they don't stick. Once they are frozen, mark a bag with the date and contents, bag them up and then do another lot.

Links

Royal Horticultural Society: Grow your own fruit: Blackberries & hybrid berries
http://www.rhs.org.uk/...
"Today there are over 2,000 varieties found throughout the cooler regions of the world. Blackberries are more highly prized as a food in Britain and Northern Europe than anywhere else in the world"
http://eattheseasons.co.uk/../blackberries.htm