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RTÉ News
08-08-2025
- General
- RTÉ News
All you need to know about the blackberry season
Analysis: The blackberry is a plant of notable cultural significance in Ireland, not least in its ability to evoke all sorts of emotional memories and nostalgia It's the blackberry season. The still red and green fruits will darken and ripen over the coming weeks and the white, sometimes blush, flowers will form into berries later, prolonging the supply over several autumn months. The bramble is a widespread shrub, often forming dense thickets with vigorous stems or canes that climb or trail, making the plant a resilient presence in urban as well as its more usual rural settings. As a tough native perennial, the blackberry shrub, with its hundreds of microspecies, holds a long-lived practical, culinary, and economic presence in Ireland, and as a result is a plant of notable cultural significance; not least in its ability to evoke all sorts of emotional memories and nostalgia. The prolonged annual seasonal presence of the blackberry gives us ample opportunity to time-travel, especially to childhood when the excitement and exhilaration of collecting food for free fixed to the near wondrous taste of the first sweet berry. Richard Mabey, one of the pioneering advocates for collecting wild foods, explains that the cluster-forming design of the stems is helpful in deciding which berries to eat raw and which to keep for culinary uses. His 1972 Food for Free advises 'the lowest berry- right at the tip of the stalk- is the first to ripen, and it is the sweetest and fattest of all. Eat it raw. A few weeks later, the other berries near the end ripen; these are less juicy, but still good for jams and pies.' From RTÉ Lyric FM's Daybreak with Evonne Ferguson, Naturefile profiles the blackberry, commonly found in Ireland from the end of the summer until October This first berry is not only sweet, but it is intensely aromatic and once consumed the berry-picking could become a bit more tedious and pricklier, especially if it rained, which tended to spoil or dilute the taste of the collected berries in the can. Moving on to the second phase of blackberrying, the cooking and preserving stage, added to this assortment of memories. Therefore, blackberrying, as a multisensorial activity, bonded memories to childhood, evoking the joy of those days with a sense of lost innocence. The following child's account from Monaghan from the Dúchas Schools' Collection is as timeless and soothingly nostalgic as it is familiar: I usually take a whole day blackberrying. I take a pint tin and a white enamel bucket. I gather them in the tin and then put them into the bucket. If it begins to rain I have to stop picking as they would not keep. I do not gather them along the road as they are too dusty. I always go round the fields where they are sure to be clean. I only pick the largest ones and I do not pick any that are too ripe. If I do not get all I require in one day I go out a second day. I usually bring one of my chums with me and we divide whatever we pick between us. As with the case of bilberries, the children's own reports in the Collection suggest that collecting blackberries was a norm fixed to their seasonal routines. An expression frequently provided by the children that 'I play blackberries in autumn' implies that the activity was an integral and standard one, while the now-forgotten expression that something is 'as plenty as blackberries' denotes the fruit's ubiquitous presence. In comparison to other seasonal wild purple fruits, like bilberries, elderberries and sloes, blackberries were easy to find, identify and collect making them the quintessential representative of wild summer and autumn fruits. With their high and aromatic taste profile and versatile culinary uses, blackberrying was emblematic of childhood and it brought as sense of agency to children's activities and endowed pickers with a bank of emotive memories to indulge reflective nostalgia. Seamus Heaney reads Blackberry Picking That one berry should hold such a network of intermeshed meanings makes it one of cultural, historical, archaeological, material and, indeed, literary import. The blackberry is an item of interest in all these disciplines and it goes without saying that it was a useful food resource from the prehistoric period to near contemporary times. There are also slight pockets of evidence detailing the use of berries, roots and canes as dye material and medicinal resources. The versatility of the plant, therefore, accounts for its inclusion in the list of protected woodland shrubs in early medieval law as outlined by the Celtic scholar, Fergus Kelly, in his 1997 publication, Early Irish Farming. While legal provision for shrubs is not as consequential as that applied to the nobles of the woods (oak, hazel, holly, and wild apple), it does suggest nonetheless a degree of woodland protection, and possibly management, applied to shrubs that have economic importance, and no doubt that value connected to the plant's food and culinary uses. Sources contemporary with the laws indicate that berries were eaten with oatmeal, milk, honey and nuts. Indeed, in a paper published in 1998 in Early Medieval Munster: Archaeology, History and Society, I suggest that such mixtures, seasonally variable, resembled a type of muesli. Interestingly, such meal and milk mixtures continue to feature in folk memory and folklife accounts into the early decades of the twentieth century. From RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany, Blackberry-Picking by Kathy Donaghy By then, the list of blackberry recipes appearing in cookery books, magazines and newspapers is extensive. For instance, the Belfast News Letter in September 1922 gives readers six options for blackberries including blackberry trifle; blackberry and tapioca mould; cold blackberry jelly; sponges; rolls; and apple and blackberry jelly. For desserts, blackberries went into mousses, puddings, fritters, cobblers, custards, souffles and meringues. They were baked into cakes, pies and tarts with some of the best loved being a mix of apples and berries. They were made into syrups, vinegars and wines, and of course, they went towards preserves in the form of jams and jellies that with careful household management could last into the winter months. However, away from the structured formality of the recipe, the Dúchas accounts of cooking and consuming blackberries provide insight into the more routine culinary uses. Here, jams and jellies are frequently mentioned, blackberry wine is popular, as are cakes, as in one from Kerry made with flour, eggs, butter, cream, apples and berries. In Cavan, a fine oatmeal flummery was sugar-sweetened and eaten with blackberries: A pint of milk was put into a saucepan & while it was coming to a boil oatmeal was sifted through a very fine sieve or strained. The sifted meal was added to the boiling milk & then sweetened with sugar. All was allowed to boil for five or ten minutes. When nearly cold the contents of saucepan was eaten with stewed fruit-blackberries. In Laois, stewed blackberries were eaten on bread so 'you might go on with your hard work.' The simplest of all descriptions was that in a young girl's letter to the Weekly Irish Times in October 1905. Here she gives the starring role to the blackberry in a description that would be at home in the current vogue for minimalist menu-writing - blackberries, milk, sugar. She writes with warmth and affection: 'I often mix some [blackberries] with sugar and milk, and they are lovely.' From RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline, callers discuss the joys of blackberry picking But rather than romanticise these accounts, remembering contextual details is important. Here is evidence of a food system that has undergone irrevocable change since the mid-20th century. The obvious affection for the berries and blackberrying connects to their seasonal presence. Today, by contrast, berries are everyday and everywhere, with production linked to global agri-systems and supported by a wellness industry that prizes the relatively low-carbohydrate profile of mostly tasteless berries. Outside these systems, the seasonal berry of the accounts above was a rare, anticipated but fleeting pleasure. Gathering in the best depended on tacit knowledge of how, where and when to collect and how to distinguish berries of different flavour profiles amongst the different microspecies. Essentially, the tradition expected connection with the natural world and an understanding of the blackberry's variable presence within that system. The following riddle frequently appears in folk material and is not simply playful, but an insight into a world of essential and inherited but now somewhat erased knowledge.
Wall Street Journal
10-07-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Accidental Garden' Review: Cultivating Unexpected Beauty
In more than 40 books written over several decades, Richard Mabey has chronicled his exploration of woods, fields and gardens throughout his native Britain. Now in his 80s, Mr. Mabey is more inclined these days to amble close to the home that he shares with his partner, Polly, in Norfolk, a largely rural region in eastern England. Their 16th-century farmhouse rests on two acres that Mr. Mabey navigates with a walking stick, which has 'also evolved into a prosthesis, and a kind of wand,' he tells readers of 'The Accidental Garden.' He uses it to 'turn over leaves to see what's underneath, push stray seeds into the ground, move a little foliage to give a primrose flower a glimpse of the sun.' As a writer, Mr. Mabey is a quizzical poker and prodder, too—peeking beneath stray bits of orthodoxy wisdom to puzzle out their imperfections, tapping popular assumptions to test their truth, sometimes giving the pious certitudes of modern conservation a modest thump. The book's title underscores Mr. Mabey's belief that, regardless of a gardener's choices, a plant often grows how and where it prefers. 'I'm writing this in my library as a more conventional source of garden beauty is slowly blocking out the light,' he mentions. 'A shrub rose called Etoile d'Hollande is fanning out across the downstairs windows and tiptoeing up to the bedrooms.' It is in keeping with Mr. Mabey's style to regard a rose as not merely an idyllic presence but an insistent one—a visitor that shrouds the author in both beauty and darkness.
Washington Post
09-07-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
We need to reset our relationship with nature. This book shows a way.
'I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany,' the essayist Annie Dillard mused in 1974. 'We know nothing for certain, but we seem to see that the world turns upon growing.' The work of the British nature writer Richard Mabey is proof of Dillard's wisdom. He has been thinking about botany since the 1970s, when he published 'Food for Free,' his classic guide to edible plants, and his interest in vegetable life has always yielded a corresponding interest in human obligations. For him, botany is both a science and an ethics, and its primary tenet is that plants are — or ought to be — our equals.
Irish Times
05-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Irish Times
Edible bushes to grow for elderflower cordial, sloe gin, jams and syrups
My youngest son, a lover of good food, has spent the past few weeks making home-made elderflower cordial. The large umbels of creamy-white flowers, plucked from the branches of a wild elder tree growing nearby and soaked in a heated solution of sugar and lemon, filled the kitchen for days with their distinctive musky scent. As for the taste, nothing says summer quite like an ice-cold, tangy glassful on a hot, sunny day. Making elderflower cordial is a family tradition that stretches back to my childhood, almost certainly inspired by a dog-eared copy of Richard Mabey's Food for Free, the classic guide to foraging in the wild first published in the early 1970s. Cordial aside, the plant's flowers can also be used to make delicious fritters, to flavour sorbets and compotes, or to make wine. As for the distinctive clusters of almost-black edible berries that follow, these can be added to muffins or used to make a health-boosting syrup as well as jams and wine. The versatility of elder tree flowers and berries as kitchen ingredients is just one example of the abundance to be found in the wild, when we have both the time and opportunity to seek it out. It's also the reason why this resilient native is increasingly being grown as one of the key species in edible hedgerows, a wonderful way to bring those flavours of the wild right into your garden where they're readily to hand. They are not for the tidy-minded as they're not suited to being regularly trimmed. These kinds of biodiverse, nature-friendly hedgerows are naturally a little on the untamed side, as the plants need room to flower and fruit. But where space allows, they can be a marvellous addition – or even an alternative – to the more conventional kitchen garden offerings. READ MORE A blue tit perched on spring crab apple blossom. Photograph: Getty Suitable candidates include our ultra-hardy native blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) or sloe bush, whose small, inky-black fruits can be used to make sloe gin as well as jam and syrup. Another is the crab apple (Malus sylvestris), whose tiny, sharp-flavoured fruits I and my siblings often collected in buckets from the nearby woodlands in autumn to make the most deliciously perfumed, pale-pink crab apple jelly. Buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides. Photograph: Getty Others include sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), whose brilliant-orange, edible berries are exceptionally rich in vitamin C and can be used to make a health-boosting syrup or jam. For best results, seek out the self-fertile variety, Hippophae 'Friesdorfer Orange'. The same is true of Rosa rugosa, an ultra-resilient species of rose with pretty flowers in shades of red, pink and white, and scarlet edible hips that have traditionally been used to make a syrup rich in vitamin C and antioxidants. Its edible flower petals can also be used to flavour desserts, make rosewater and as a pretty garnish for cakes and puddings. Recommended varieties include the pale pink Rosa 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', Rosa rugosa 'Rubra', and Rosa rugosa 'Alba'. Prunus spinosa. Photograph: Getty For something different, consider the cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), whose acid-yellow spring flowers are followed by clusters of edible, scarlet red-purple fruits in late summer and autumn. Or the medlar (Mespilus germanica), whose distinctive, golden-brown fruits, so colourfully described by Shakespeare, are delicious used to make medlar jelly, or a sweet curd, or as a base for other fruit jams. Other fruiting/berrying species to consider include quince (Chaenomeles japonica); wild plum (Prunus institia); cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera); black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa); Chinese dogwood (Cornus kousa var. chinensis); hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and the Chilean guava (Ugni molinae). Our native hazel (Corylus avellana) is also often recommended for these kinds of edible hedges. But as the late Ándi Wilson, the hugely knowledgeable nurseryman and owner of the now-closed Mayo-based specialist nursery Fruit & Nut, pointed out in its still extant, excellent website ( ), it's actually not a good choice for these kinds of crowded growing conditions, where its flowering and pollination can be easily inhibited, reducing potential yields by as much as 90 per cent. Instead, he recommended including some walnuts or Spanish chestnuts (the latter was his preference as its smaller leaves were less likely to shade out other plants). Wilson's suggestion was to grow these as a handful of specimen trees within an edible hedge, using at least two named cultivars planted eight metres apart for a decent yield. The reason here for choosing named cultivars over the seed-raised species is one of productivity, as the latter are typically much slower to produce nuts and much less productive when they do. In the case of sweet chestnuts, seek out varieties such as Castanea 'Bournette, C. 'Marigoul', C. Marshac' and C. 'Marsol', while for productive walnut varieties, seek out Juglans 'Corne du Perigord', J. 'Fernor,' J. 'Fertignac'; and J. 'Mayette'. These kinds of edible hedges generally do best when given a sunny, sheltered spot and a reasonably fertile, moisture-retentive but free-draining, mildly acid to neutral soil away from the shade and competition of already established trees and large shrubs. In particular, bear in mind that both the recommended nut species mentioned above are highly intolerant of cold, wet, poorly drained soils or very exposed, windy sites. As is the case for most shrubby species, the best time to plant your edible hedge is in late autumn or early spring, during the bare root season. Recommended stockists include Cork-based specialist online suppliers Future Forests ( ), which offers an excellent range at very competitive prices, including several purple-leafed varieties of elder (Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace'; Sambucus 'Black Towers' and Sambucus 'Black Beauty') with pink flushed flowers. Not only can these be used to make pink elderflower cordial, but also your very own home-made pink champagne. How glorious is that? This week in the garden Net brassica crops such as cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts to protect them against damage from the cabbage white butterfly, taking care to secure the edges properly with lengths of wood or pegs in the ground to prevent it from accidentally trapping birds. Check daily just in case. Keep picking sweet pea flowers to encourage the plants to continue producing new blooms, and dead head any faded stems for the same reason. These hungry, thirsty plants will also benefit from regular liquid seaweed feeds to keep them healthy and happy. Dates for your diary Galway Garden Festival Claregalway Castle; today and tomorrow (July 5th and 6th), 11am-5pm. With specialist plant sales, entertainment, and expert talks by guest speakers Klaus Laitenberger, Paul Smyth, Colm O'Driscall, Leonie Cornelius, Christopher White, and Karen Williams. A Fiesta of Dahlias June Blake's garden, Tinode, Blessington, Co Wicklow; every weekend in July (from 2pm). A celebration of this remarkable genus of plants with free workshops, expert talks, plus tours of the garden. Carlow Garden Festival Saturday, July 26th to Sunday, August 3rd. With expert guest speakers including Financial Times gardening correspondent and author, Robin Lane Fox (Huntington Castle, August 2nd); author and head gardener of Kilmacurragh, Seamus O'Brien (Burtown House, July 30th); British garden designer Sarah Eberle (Borris House, July 31st); organic kitchen gardener Tanguy de Toulgoët (Shankill Castle, July 30th); and Peter O'Mahony in conversation with Adam Frost (Arboretum Garden Centre, Leighlinbridge, July 26th), booking essential.
New Indian Express
05-06-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
The treasure in our trees
From the stately, tall coconut trees come the coconut, which could be fashioned into wonderful stilts on which children could walk tall. From the Indian Coral tree came these wonderful seeds that would get very hot when rubbed on the ground. What wonderful hours we had, placing the hot seed on the arm of an unsuspecting friend and watching them leap in surprise. Where have all the trees gone? Most children have barely seen a tamarind tree, let alone climbed one. About a year ago, I interviewed a number of people asking them to recollect their childhood memories of play. One talked of a wonderful catching game that they played that involved climbing trees. Another reminisced about how he never used to enter through the gate of his friend's house but preferred to clamber over the wall by using an overhanging tree. To quote Richard Mabey, a renowned British writer and broadcaster, best known for his work exploring the relationship between nature and culture — 'To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.' And the roots of our traditional games are in our trees – truly the treasure in the trees.
