I am the lucky owner of a 20m blackberry hedge. Last years yield was about 15kg and thus year looks to be the same.
But here’s the thing, 15kg is far too much to make jam of, so last year I experimented with wine. I got this kit https://brew2bottle.co.uk/products/better-brew-hedgerow-wine-kit-23l and just followed the instructions. And it was a great success, everyone who’s tasted it have even been to nice to say it was bad or have actually complimented the wine. But I still have half the wine left and now it’s time for 2023s harvest.
I’m still considering wine, jam and some juice but… What would you do with a lot of blackberries?
Some jam, some syrup and all the other various preserves. Also you could try making fruit leather.
You have a good setup for producing something to sell at a farmers market. Check your local rules on selling ‘cottage foods’. Certain jurisdictions around the world allow certain types of food to be made and sold without running afoul of regulations.
I’d really like to take it to a farmers market, but we don’t seem to have those in my area. It’s rural, so if you have something you want to sell you just throw up a sign by the road about it. I don’t want strangers in my yard, besides Danish regulations are even more anal than the German ones, almost as bad as the Swedish and Norwegian regs.
We’ve made fruit leather other years from plums, maybe I should try it with the berries for my kids lunches and such.
The main advantage of leather is it takes a huge quantity of fruit to make a batch.
Dang, the more you describe your setup, the more I envy the situation. Too many blackberries is an amazing problem to have!
I get it with not wanting to run a farm stand. One of my farm jobs as a kid was to watch the driveway and run out to sell people our greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers, so I know what a hassle that can be. Some people are just oblivious to personal boundaries.
We would get to the point with our harvests that we would have piles of green tomatoes and meter-long woody cucumbers. Turns out they make excellent sporting equipment for a game of vegetarian baseball.
Jams,jellies, fermented juice that can be added to salad dressing, freeze them for snacks in the winter, dehydrate them
Fruits leather also has long shell life if you have dehydrator
You could just leave them out for the squirrels and the crows, if you have those in your area. They love fattening up on berries in the fall.
I know, and I don’t disagree with you. But there’s plenty of other stuff for the birds to eat, and we don’t have any squirrels, and the berries are right there for me to save a buck on in the winter.
I’m jealous, OP. But IDK.
You’re more than welcome to come by for a kg or two… I’m only a two hour drive from the nearest international airport, and most of the way is even paved :-O
Blackberry jam!
But…if you want to be really REALLY extra…
Blackberry ice cream!
500 ml 35% cream
1000 ml 10% cream
1 1/2 c sugar
1 T vanilla
Dump base Into the ice cream maker and turn it on.
1 1/2 c blackberries
2 T sugar
Mash with a fork, mix, then allow to macerate.
When the ice cream is almost finished add the macerated blackberries. If you put them in at the beginning or too early the ice cream goes foamy instead of being nice and dense.
Now, eat your dark purple ice cream!
There it was! I knew I would get a new idea from this. Blackberry ice cream! I’m going to try that. Thanks.
You’re welcome! Enjoy!
Hey mapleengineer, didn’t notice it was you. I saw that you hadn’t posted in the homesteading/chicken communities in a few weeks, and I was afraid that you had given up on trying to get them to take off.
Howdy. No, I haven’t given up. I just got busy. My day job has been keeping me busy and we’re getting my daughter ready to move to university this weekend. And, to be honest, I just haven’t had much to post about. Things have just been chugging along. Turkey processing and chicken processing are coming up in a few weeks so I’ll post about that. Also, I’m starting to think about next maple syrup season.
