Considering Blackberries

Throughout the summer I think about blackberries because they grow wild where I live. They are an amazing plant with a good defense. You likely know the saying that the best offense is a good defense. Well, blackberries have it down.

I see the green berries forming early in the summer, and watch the vines grow long and thorny. Then when the fruit is ripe, the vines get incredibly unruly and tangled so that picking the berries can be a painful affair. The vines snake across the path and even up into trees -- they are good at movement for something without legs.


There are 2 kinds of blackberries that grow here -- one is large and the other is small. And when they are ripe, they are equally as delicious. When they're not quite ripe, and picked by mistake, they are both sour. They're always full of fiber which means that they have seeds although when dead-ripe and almost falling off the plant, the berry seems to just melt in my mouth. This is the exception, not the rule.


Some of the best berries are hard to get to or hidden high in a tree. I'm short so they are a challenge to pick but worth it.

And as I worked on this blog post, I came across a link to a rat study recently done on black raspberries and their anticancer effect http://medicalcenter.osu.edu/mediaroom/press/article.cfm?ID=4214. That fruit likely contains the same kind of antioxidant activity as blackberries. So eat them up, when you can easily get to them.