Are blackberries early this year?

[glallotments]

Visiting the plot yesterday I noticed that quite a number of fruits on my cultivated blackberry were ripe and asking to be picked.

They were big and juicy and there was even a wasp browsing on one!

Just wondered is my memory playing tricks or is it a bit early for ripe blackberries?

[Elaine]

Hi Glallotments. Our blackberries are still "tight" and green with no sign of ripening as yet. I made my blackberry/apple jam 10th August last year, so that would make your blackberries early by our standards! Cheers.

[naturediva]

Hi
The blackberries around the garden fence are no-where near ready yet, fruit recently started to set and some on another side of the garden still at the flowering stage. So Glallotments, yours seem as if really early, perhaps you've had more sunshine.
Lucky you! Enjoy your abundance!

[glallotments]

Maybe a little more than last year but nothing special really!

[alan refail]

Short answer: No.

The only ones we use are wild blackberies. Currently they are just coming into full flower and attracting lots of bees and other pollinators. We picked the first boxful (enough for a pie) on 17 August. I doubt if there will be any ready in the next four weeks. But we are hoping for a much better crop than last year's pathetic showing.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear glallotments, i have just come off the phone with my Mum, she said there was an old farmer boy at her little stall today saying, that he and his wife had picked some blackberries today, and how early they were.

None ready where i live though.

[Tigger]

Our cultivated ones are ready - I've already made 3 lots of jam and we've been eating them in summer pudding and pies for a couple of weeks now. That's a month earlier than last year.

The wild ones are just starting to colour.

[Westi]

A bird kindly deposited our cultivated balckberry -
right in the middle of the strawberries! It is laden
with fruit and some of them are ready but down here
it is quite often diferent and a bit ahead on most
things.
There is fruit on the wild ones but still small and
green. I even have mulberies this year but a bit
teeney tiny to really make anything of.

Westi

[Primrose]

Just spotted my first wild ripe blackberries in a hedge nearby. Our cultivated ones are barely just coming into flower but mostly on a north facing fence so normally don't ripen until mid August at the earliest. I try to pick some wild ones to mix with the cultivated ones, as they may be bigger and jucier but unfortunately don't have so much flavour as the wild ones.

[glallotments]

Just been picking more. The are flowers and berries at all stages of development. The bees and gatekeeper butterflies (see PJ I am learning) are visiting the flowers and the wasps and I are concentrating on the ripe fruits.