This is the season of harvesting fruit.  We have cooking apples and Victoria plums in our garden, plus runner beans.  It is a delight to eat produce you have grown yourself.  The runner beans were a marvel as we almost didn’t have any due to squirrels and slugs, and they then required a lot of attention with watering and tying up.  The apples and plums were a marvel as they just did their own thing. 

But what about blackberries?  We pass hedges full of them on our dog walk every day.  I love the strength and colour of the larger canes, a bold cerise set off by the green leaves. I love their vigour and energy, renewing themselves each year although cut back hard.  I love the way that the fruits don’t all ripen at the same time and you can have green, red and black on one stalk.  And I love the way they seem so out for themselves with their pushing stems and their prickles, and then offer sweet fruits to anyone passing by.  But oh, they are such a problem in the garden.

You can’t easily get rid of blackberries, especially if they grow among other plants and shrubs as mine do, and if hidden an exploring stem will find soil and grow new roots, so multiplying the number I have!  But I no longer complain about or to them, or other dominant weeds that I don’t want.  I treat them with love and respect as I cut them back, and talk to them, such as: ‘Hallo my lovely, I am just going to cut you back as this isn’t the best place for you’, or ‘Come on, you know you are not meant to be here’.  It helps my heart, and the ecosystem of my garden, to interact with love.

Blackberries

Cooking blackberries
in my porridge
they leak their taste and colour
leaving a bright carmine streak
as I stir.

As I walk this earth
I leave myself behind,
I am part of its colour and flavour.

I can choose what flavour I leave.