A berry nice reason to get out picking

IT’S the season of mellow fruitfulness with all sorts of superb wild food available after what has been a good year in terms of both heat and moisture, creating ideal conditions for healthy growth.

Nothing reflected a bountiful harvest on our ditches better than the bramble and its fine crop of blackberries. Adults and children have been out picking blackberries – an old tradition which has been undergoing a revival in some rural areas. This is probably part of a pattern whereby people are returning to nature and natural things.

Blackberries make delicately-tasting jam and are also great in pies and puddings. Some stylish innovators people have also been known to flavour their evening martinis with blackberry.

For most of us, however, it’s the blackberry jam that in the dark and cold of winter gives us pleasant memories of summer and autumn days when these juicy berries awaited picking.

Blackberries have grown across Asia, Europe and the Americas for tens of thousands of years. Archaeological records show that European inhabitants ate them as long ago as 8,000 BC. During World War I, children in England were given time off school to collect blackberries for the production of juice that was sent to soldiers at the front to help maintain health.

Today, there are over 2,000 varieties found throughout the cooler regions of the world. Blackberries are more highly prized as a food in Ireland, Britain and northern Europe than anywhere else in the world.

Rubus fruticosus is the Latin name for the European blackberry, also known as bramble. Like the raspberry, it is an aggregate fruit and a relative of the rose, which you can see from the thorns. It is a highly adaptable and fast-growing shrub, found in hedgerows, woodland, meadows and wasteland. It can grow in poor soil and its prickly stems help protect other plants’ young shoots from being eaten.

Blackberries are packed with antioxidants and vitamin C. Their many tiny seeds also make them a good source of fibre. Blackberries freeze well and it’s a good idea to get a few bags in the freezer to use throughout the winter. Blackberry picking need not be confined to country people. Brambles full of berries can be found in cities, usually growing on scrubland, canalside paths and in wooded areas. Blackberries should be washed thoroughly before use as they can be exposed to dust, farm fertiliser and any number of other substances.

This is also a great time to visit the woodlands which are changing their coat colours from largely green to russet, brown and golden autumn hues.

While we have a deal of commercially planted woodland, native woodland covers only about 2% of the country. Counties with the most native woodland are: Waterford, Offaly and Wicklow.

One of the best examples, however, is in Killarney National Park which has some of the finest surviving natural oakwoods. These sessile woods are also famous for the variety of insects, ferns, mosses and lichens they contain. Some of the oaks are believed to be up to 400 years old.

We have four types of native woodland: oak/holly, ash/hazel, alder and birch. Each type is found on a particular soil, with sessile oak woods being most common on poor soils. Ash woods grow on better ground and have a great variety of flowering plants. Alder woods, on the other hand, thrive on wet soils, while birch does well in bogs.

Dead wood, including tree trunks and large branches, is also an important part of the woodland habitat, providing an abundant home for many insects and fungi. All of which explains why in Killarney National Park and other such parks dead wood is simply left in situ.

Our woodlands can never been taken for granted and many are subject to threats, especially from invasive plants such as the rhododendron, overgrazing, deer and clearance for building.

On the upside, the amount of ground under native woodland is increasing as a result of planting and natural extension into deserted farmland and cutaway bog.

In any case, get on down to the woods today.