You really couldn't make this up ...

[Allegheny1600]

4 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

The other danger of collecting jam jars is that you might start thinking they are an acceptable substitute for drinking beer instead of a proper pint glass.

 

This sort of mindset can lead to growing a beard and turning full hipster. Just say no kids!

I dunno about drinking beer out of a jam jar but an older bobby of my acquaintance told me about one time when he had to visit one of the more salubrious parts of Derby (Chaddesden!) and the lady of the house invited him to make himself at home, sitting upon an old bus type of bench seat.

"Tea" offers she. Upon receiving this brew in a jam jar, my erstwhile colleague was disturbed to discover the jar contained not only tea but the remains of the jam! Presumably, he didn't need any sugar!

 

Btw, in Derby, it was also "scrumping" and I was taught it by my dad!

[pH]

6 hours ago, Brinkly said:

The only thing I worry about is taking food the birds might eat; although, I have several bird feeders in the garden to supplement their diet throughout the year.

 

2 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

Maybe we're lucky but we don't seem to have to compete with the birds for blackberries. I saw our [female] blackbird try a few one day but she doesn't seem to have repeated the experience.

 

Here, we have to compete with the bears for the blackberries!

 

We have blackberry bushes across the front road from us. The berries are ripening now, and people passing will stop to pick and eat a few - people walking their dogs, or even on the way home from work.

 

Our back yard backs on to school grounds. Some years ago, in the name of economy, the local school district drastically cut back on ground maintenance. As a result, the blackberries have run wild. My wife (occasionally with my help) continually has to hack back the bushes trying to invade our yard. People harvest the bushes in the school grounds for jam making, and the bears harvest them in preparation for hibernating. You have to be aware when you're picking!

[The Stationmaster]

S*ddin' blackberries - I'm continually battling with the bloomin' things as they try to invade ever more of our back garden but they are nice to eat and even nicer in blackberry & apple pies or crumble,  If anybody with secateurs would like to cut their way in to the more juicy ones in some of our blackberry entanglements you are welcome and I'll lend you a step ladder so that you can reach the higher ones. 

 

PS beware the stininging nettles as some of those are about 9 feet high.

[57xx]

5 hours ago, colin penfold said:

 

If she doesn't know what is safe and what isn't it's very sensible to take the approach with a 4 year old not to encourage her to eat things of unknown origin. I can see I am in the company of people on this thread who think differently so Im going to keep out of it.

 

 

There's a big difference between telling a child that it may not be safe to eat berries (and why) and saying you can only eat food bought from shops. One is education, the other is ignorance.

[Johnsy]

By far the best brambles (I am a Scot - we don't call then blackberries) that I have picked for many a year come from a site near Annan.  The site used to be a WWII airfield and is somewhat contaminated with lub oil and aviation fuel around the hangers and spent machine gun bullets around the test-firing butts.  The site was then used for one of the UK's first nuclear power stations - which is still there, more or less.

 

I leave it to you to decide if the excellent size and flavour of these berries is the result of the previous uses of the site or the fact that not many people come to pick them!

 

[Bernard Lamb]

One day when we were Walking in the mountains in Alaska we found some Salmon Berries.

They were very tasty.

When we told our hosts about our discovery they were horrified.

You must not pick them we were told.

Not because they are harmful but because they are a favourite food of the local bear population, who might get rather upset to discover people taking them.

Bernard

[Bernard Lamb]

8 hours ago, spikey said:

Yesterday, I was out brambling in a nearby hedge when a young mother walked past pushing a buggy.  She was accompanied by a sweet little girl of perhaps four, who asked mother what that man's doing.  Mother explained that I was picking berries to eat, and as they passed me, the little girl said "Can we pick some too?"  "No darling" says she "It's not really safe to eat things you don't buy from a shop."

 

 

 

 

I wonder how many people die from eating wild plants as opposed to how many people die from food poisoning from items bought in shops.

Bernard 

[Tony Davis]

6 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Beat me to it!

And me, I was wondering if he meant; whilst wearing a kilt, or; in a kilt as opposed to a saucepan?

[Tony Davis]

58 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

PS beware the stininging nettles as some of those are about 9 feet high.

1

You can eat those too, and make tea from them, and rather potent fertilizer.

[Matt C]

We used to scrump apples, but then we lived next door to and spent a lot of our youth on the Farm next door that mainly grew cider apples in its Orchards and made Scrumpy  or Natch (rough or natural ) Cider. Try a drop of that straight from the barrel and you find your legs stop working 

[meil]

11 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I wonder how many people die from eating wild plants as opposed to how many people die from food poisoning from items bought in shops.

Bernard 

Confusing an Avenging Angel with a field mushroom is a pretty effective way of departing this life.

[JeremyC]

13 minutes ago, meil said:

Confusing an Avenging Angel with a field mushroom is a pretty effective way of departing this life.

To quote (I think) Terry Pratchett

"All mushrooms are edible, some of them only once"

 

When I was a child we used go brambling every year until the approach road for the first Forth Road Bridge was built across the bramble patch!

Edited August 4, 2019 by JeremyC

[62613]

5 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Morris dancing.

 

You forgot about Morris dancing.

Oi!

3 hours ago, peanuts said:

can remember many a happy summers afternoons in the wimberry bushes on the banking above the old moorgate crossing merrily picking  bags of wimberys for mum to make into pies whilst waiting to catch numbers on the transpennine services  below .move on down towards saddleworth viaduct and there woukd be a huge wild blackberry bush on the track bed of the Delph Donkey to bag up and take home to be made into jam .generaly worked off the rule that if it was purple or black it was safe to eat .shame oranges wouldnt grow on the western slopes of the peninnes as my mums whisky marmalade was heaven on hot toast 

It certainly was, as was her bacon-rib soup when you came home from a football match on a cold winter Saturday evening. I always found that anything that mum did involving fruit also involved sugar rationing, or so it seemed.

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by 62613

[Baby Deltic]

7 hours ago, Fenman said:

 

There was also no crime in those far-off halcyon days...

 

Although maybe that's because we called it "scrumping" rather than "thieving".

 

Paul

It's important for youngsters to get their 'five a day'.

[Baby Deltic]

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

And in Oxford in the 1960s. The best apple trees were in the Vicarage garden; That's all I'm prepared to say on the matter.......

Tut tut! Apples in God's garden? Taking a bite of the forbidden fruit?

[Baby Deltic]

2 hours ago, Tony Davis said:

You can eat those too, and make tea from them, and rather potent fertilizer.

 

Full of vitamins too.

[Nearholmer]

For anyone who might want some facts to add to anecdote and reminiscence, this is a very interesting read https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2017/sep/18/how-death-has-changed-over-100-years-in-britain showing how being a child has become a great deal less perilous over the past century.

 

Returning to anecdote:

 

My basic teaching to my children has always been “don’t eat any berries that you haven’t checked with mum or dad.” Particularly vital since we have a red and black currant bushed in the garden, and deadly nightshade grows entwined with the blackberries down the road.

 

And, “no helmet; no scooter/bike”, because a child falling off either in a typical child-fall manner is much less likely to get a nasty head injury when wearing a helmet.

 

So happens that I always wear a helmet when cycling too - it won’t save me in a major set-to with a motor vehicle, but it probably will help in a more minor spill.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Nearholmer

[laurenceb]

2 hours ago, Tony Davis said:

You can eat those too, and make tea from them, and rather potent fertilizer.

Also full of protein my Mother used them in salads & stews

[peanuts]

3 hours ago, 62613 said:

Oi!

It certainly was, as was her bacon-rib soup when you came home from a football match on a cold winter Saturday evening. I always found that anything that mum did involving fruit also involved sugar rationing, or so it seemed.

 

oh yes it was particulaly after a poor home defeat on a freezing february evening have the recipe somewhere bro gonna pass it on to izzi for when the bairns born make sure he is raised on proper food 

[Damo666]

3 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I wonder how many people die from eating wild plants as opposed to how many people die from food poisoning from items bought in shops.

Bernard 

 

Reading some of the previous posts, I wonder how many people get killed from bears whilst picking berries?

[pH]

3 minutes ago, Damo666 said:

 

Reading some of the previous posts, I wonder how many people get killed from bears whilst picking berries?

 

They can get ticked off with you even when you're just minding your own business:

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grizzly-attack-1.5233841

 

 

[melmerby]

8 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

It was 'scrumping' in S W Wales and North Staffs in the 1960s.

I thought scrumping was a national word not a local dialect

It's certainly valid in the West Midlands (including Herefordshire & Worcestershire)

Where does one get scrumpy from?

[melmerby]

9 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

The other danger of collecting jam jars is that you might start thinking they are an acceptable substitute for drinking beer instead of a proper pint glass.

 

More likely in trendy coffee emporia!

I might ask: Who do that get to put the handles on those jam jars?

Is there a workshop somewhere putting glass handles on jam jars for coffee shops?

[Reorte]

At some point we'll probably be looking back at the "bad old days" of now, when people had the gall to let children walk outside without protection. At what point does it become absurd?

 

***

 

The local bilberries don't appear to be doing very well this year (or someone's already had most of them!)

[Guest JiLo]

5 hours ago, Johnsy said:

By far the best brambles (I am a Scot - we don't call then blackberries) that I have picked for many a year come from a site near Annan.  The site used to be a WWII airfield and is somewhat contaminated with lub oil and aviation fuel around the hangers and spent machine gun bullets around the test-firing butts.  The site was then used for one of the UK's first nuclear power stations - which is still there, more or less.

 

I leave it to you to decide if the excellent size and flavour of these berries is the result of the previous uses of the site or the fact that not many people come to pick them!

 

Im a Scot, I'll call 'em blackberries!  Delicious though!