Pacific Northwest - Blackberries

Last night, I stopped in Magnolia before heading down the hill for the Ballard Locks, and feasted on blackberries, fresh off the bush. When I ride on the Burke Gilman, I see lots of people filling buckets with them. Most plants I walk by are just beginning to ripen, but free berry time is at hand.

Do you ever stop on rides for a free snack from nature? Do you take your bike out and pick your own? Where are your favorite patches?

I don't have to ride. I just walk two blocks down the hill from my house. Or 1. Or 4. Love the blackberries! Just not in my yard.

Up here in Snohomish county, the blackberries are still not being close to ripe. Still a lot of blossoms on the bushes, and tiny hard green berries.

The berries are great. The plants, not so much.

Before:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6008/5972419241_f547d7b717_z.jpg

After:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6139/5972424789_98cd8ef544_z.jpg

From this series:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohpv/sets/72157627149777723/with/5972419241/

I've got a blackberry bramble across the street from my apartment, but prefer to ride a few miles to get to one. If you collect berries on the BGT near Gas Works, there are thousands of passers by. It's a nice ride, and the people watching is fun.

I went down to a boat launch from a trail in Seward Park yesterday, and filled my water bottles in about ten minutes. After climbing Beacon Hill I got caught up, because no one is eating the berries down there, and there were so many ripe ones, I just couldn't let them go to waste. On a four-hour ride, it was a pretty welcome stop.

Two water bottles aren't really enough!

I am from the Northeast but I can never pass up Mullberries when I run across them! I actually think I will now chronicle (With GPS Pictures!) my adventures of the Mullberries!

Since the blackberries are quite ripe in the Willamette Valley, I was hoping for a fruit break on yesterday's 200 km ride in the O&C lands that lie between here and the coast. Unfortunately, there were only blossoms and green fruit. I did find a few salmon berries, though. They're not very sweet but have a nice taste.

When I lived in the Sacramento Valley, I often stopped for apricots, peaches, figs, plums, apples and grapes at various places. If I was riding with a friend who worked at the U.C. Davis strawberry fields, we would pick a few from plots he knew to be safe. We would occasionally pick olives along the bike path. When the path out of town was cluttered with walnuts we would shoot them at each other with our tires. Those walnut trees were planted many generations ago by the local women's auxiliaries so that they could have shade on their Sunday carriage rides.

We were picking blackberries yesterday and plan on taking a ride out to Sellwood as the picking on the bike path is very good and the blackberries are just becoming ready to pick... with a cool spring and rather cool summer things are running a little behind.

The ride is also a nice one and could not ask for better company either.

I was out on the mountain bike late last week, the huckleberries are ripe and delicious right now. I also saw a few rings of Chanterelle mushrooms, just starting.

Ah, the ONE thing I miss about Seattle: blackberries. The fruit, not the plants.

But all in all, I like it better here.

SP
Bend, OR