September
At this time of year my emotions are always conflicted. Some of this dates back to childhood; I loved school so much and always looked forward eagerly to the new academic year starting in September. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I never enjoyed August until I was old enough to go to The Proms. Then, following a few years as a singer, I came back to school again as a teacher. Now I was ambivalent in another way as family time gave way to preparations for teaching. This became even more acute once we moved to Wales and the end of the long vac meant a return to boarding duties and weeks spent away. Those last few precious days – spent, as my headmaster at the time said, in the bosom of the family – always centred around long walks collecting brambles for preserving. That special quality of late summer sun and feeling the nights drawing in made the pleasure and sadness even more poignant.
My Plant of the Month
Even though I now live in Wales all the time I still remember those feelings. Brambles are the plant of the moment and collecting them is important to us. It’s a valuable crop and, unusually, flowers and fruit of all stages of ripeness appear on the plant at once so we are joined by the bees making the most of a late nectar flow as we pick. It’s a good year. We gathered the first few berries (technically an aggregate fruit comprising many druplets which ‘picks with’ its torus – the central receptacle – unlike the raspberry) and we know that within the week a wider ripening will occur. We’ll do our best to take as much as we can before the rains arrive in ten days or so and make spoilage hard to avoid. Remember also that Michaelmas marks the end of your picking because, when the Archangel Michael defeated Lucifer, the falling angel landed in a bramble bush and cursed its fruit, spitting on it. Actually I suspect that he did something rather more regrettable making it even less enticing to consume them. However, fortunately for us, there is not usually much left to tempt the pickers as the cooler, damper conditions of autumn make mould increasingly likely.
Usefulness
Blackberries have good nutritional properties as you might guess: fibre, flavonoids and several vitamins among much else. Even the seeds contain omega 3 and 6 oils as well as protein though I admit that I don’t especially enjoy chewing on them. All parts of the plant have been used: for food, medicine and rope. Of course, they make a peerless hedge.
Deliciousness
As to me, I like my blackberries cooked, put through a jelly bag made from an old baby muslin tied to an upturned stool, the juice measured and balanced one pint to a pound of sugar (the metric equivalent is more complicated and hard to remember) then boiled to jam point. Ivor used to push the pulp through a sieve to make fruit curd and leather (the precursor of fruit pastilles) although I have neither his patience nor ability to focus so singlemindedly so the chickens enjoy it instead these days. Once the jelly is made it has a most beautiful glowing darkness and woody, tannic tang beside the sweetness which makes it a wonderful breakfast or teatime spread on crumpets or muffins, a delicious addition to yoghurt and, if you put a teaspoon in a mug and top up with hot water, a soothing drink for cold weather sore throats and a welcome memory of those last treasured days in the warm sun.