Q re: Blackberries..

If we get another warm weak the hard ones should ripen.

Some years it looks like a bumper crop and only a few ripen.

This year they seem to be more abundant than most. I've been growing the thornless variety around the garden.

One plant is about four years old and produced the biggest berries I've ever seen.

The one thing I'm not sure about is the pruning. I need to do some research, if anyone has any tips, please post them.

Made some lovely jam & a berry/apple crumble from picking at the weekend.

I notice loads of fairly big red berries on many of the bushes. What are the chances of them ripening in the next while?

Remember to pick them from a height above 3ft.... just in case....

Best jam recipe:

.8kg berries, .5kg cooking apples cubed small, 1kg jam sugar, juice of two lemons. Add lemon halves to cooking pot, remove near finish.

Be sure the temp reaches 105C.... otherwise the jam won't set.

Should get you 6 jars.

Loads of them grow by our house, I use to love eating them. Then one day just as I was about to put one in my mouth, I saw this miniature centipede looking creature in my blackberry🤢🤮 I never ate one by the house again. Make sure to clean your blackberries very well before eating them

There are some little hairs around the seeds in rosehips that will cause upset - you need to scoop them out with the seeds then rinse to make sure you have got rid of them all. If you know what you are doing you can make syrup and jelly without removing them first because the straining process will get the hairs - use doubled fine muslin and don't squeeze it. The hairs are/used be used to make itching powder, you really don't want to ingest them.