Summer is finally here! Local pools are open, the garden is chugging along, tomatoes are starting to show up at the Farmers’ Market, and best of all, our wild berries are ripening! When we bought our property five years ago, we were thrilled to find an abundance of wild blackberry canes. And last year, we stumbled upon black raspberries. They are delicious! They seem to start ripening around the solstice and, for us, mark the start of summer.
We ventured out yesterday morning to beat the heat and see what we could find. Maybe it’s because we were hungry for berries or maybe our eyes are just a little more keen on finding the berry canes, but we came home with 2 1/2 pounds of black raspberries. My husband cleared some paths for us so we could find them a little more easily. And it seemed as though the kids were eating them as quickly as we were picking them – which is a good thing!
While we were at it, my husband also did some clearing below one of the old apple trees we’ve found. We’re going to start a small orchard next year, but last fall we found some apple trees we didn’t even know we had! We got a bushel of apples last year and hope to find more this year. It’s so exciting to find all of this “free” food! Do you have any wild berries on your farm? What’s your favorite berry?
