Complex parenting

BLACKBERRIES are many people’s first—perhaps only—excursion into the world of foraging.

- Mark Diacono

Some of my strongest childhood memories are of the four of us, Tupperware in hand, heading to the railway line that—thanks to the Beeching line closures—had grown wild with brambles. How could something free taste this good? One for me, one for the tub was as good as the ratio of eating to saving got.

Whether in my own garden or beyond, plucking soft fruit from the plant still holds that magic for me. Although I continue to forage blackberries with my family, I can’t help but grow a few of the sweeter varieties bred for the garden, together with a raspberry bed and—every bit as good as the rest—a few hybrid berries that I wouldn’t be without.

Boysenberries (Rubus ursinus x idaeus) are among my favourite fruits. After a few years without, I planted one in our new garden and keenly anticipate its fruitfulness. There is some debate, but a boysenberry is commonly regarded as a Californian cross between a blackberry (R. fruticosus), raspberry (R. idaeus), American dewberry (R. aboriginum) and loganberry (R. x loganobaccus). You might think that the complex parenting would lead to fruit of indistinct taste, yet it is extraordinary: fat, dark and juicy, with a depth and complexity of flavour that brings the ripest black- currants and red wine to mind.