Blackberries

Blackberries are excellent for both cooking and out-of-hand eating. The evergreen blackberry is native to England, where it is known as the cutleaf or parsley-leafed blackberry. After a thornless evergreen was found and propagated in the 1920s, it became the most productive of all the commercially grown blackberries. The fruit is black, firm, and sweet. The seeds are quite large-its least desirable quality. Raspberries and blackberries are the group of cultivated fruit crops referred to as brambles. Raspberries and blackberries are distinguished in the following way: when picked, the white receptable (core) comes off with the blackberry fruit, whereas it remains attached to the raspberry plant. What plant can be used as a hedge and impermeable barrier all year long, yet produces showy blooms in April and fruit in May? What plant is practically immune to the problems of insects and disease, yet produces one of the best jelly, jam, juice, pie, cobbler and wine fruits known to man? The only fruit which can boast all of these attributes is a berry which is black-commonly referred to as the blackberry. Many cultivars of raspberries and blackberries are available to the home grower. It is important to choose cultivars which can withstand the winter temperatures in your area. Also consider productivity, use, season of ripening and quality as well.
Blackberries
The thornless blackberries are of marginal hardiness in the Northeast and should be planted only in a protected area. In addition, they are susceptible to rodent damage. The blackberry, like the raspberry, belongs to a group of small-fruit crops called brambles. Brambles have perennial root systems and biennial canes. Canes produced during the first growing season (primocanes) produce fruit the following summer.1 The canes then die back to ground level during the winter. Blackberry canes are generally prickly with small to large thorns, although some thornless cultivars have been cultivated for many years. Blackberries have only been domesticated very, very, recently - wild berries were always available in hedgerows and woodland margins, and some species were aggressive weeds of pastures and fields, so the idea of deliberately planting them was regarded as madness. But with increasing urbanization, access to wild berries was much reduced, and in from the late 1860's onward there was an effort to find bigger and better wild berry plants to bring into the garden, especially in America. It is from natural hybrids in America, and selections and hybridization between wild species in Europe, that most of our commercial blackberries come. It would be fair to say that modern blackberries are not much different from wild berries except in size. Blackberries have a very short shelf life, they are liable to damage in transport and handling, and the plant can be subject to quite a few diseases. When conditions are good, they are very productive, and well suited to 'commoditization' as a frozen or pulp product for use in other manufactured 'foods'. Fresh market berries are consequently relatively expensive, and have a short season. Frozen berries may give best value for money. At 21 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams, fresh blackberries are a very good source of vitamin C. So about a quarter of a supermarket 250 gram punnet delivers an adult about a fifth (20%) of their daily minimal needs; at the same time it delivers nearly 10% of an adults daily folate (B complex, folic acid) needs. Blackberries were ranked fourth in tests to identify the most antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables.













































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