Hate blackberries? Great! That just means there's more for me!

Knockin' on the Crips? Shit, you best be trippin'.

wow... you're in a mood this morning...

Damn it, @ 3, I was going to say the exact same thing.

Blackberries are one of the few signs of a divine, all loving, omnipotent God. Take that!

Teehee. Dan's been sounding a bit crotchety lately. A little like Daria from that old MTV cartoon. Or an angry old Englishman. Although I agree with everyone you said except the Pit Bulls thing, asshole.

"everyTHING you said" not Everyone...bleh.

Crotchety, much?

I love blackberries and when I moved to WA I was surprised at the hatred people here have of them. However, I grew up in SW Michigan and lived in Philly and in both places, blackberry bushes have to be nurtured and coddled just to get a few measly berries, so the rarity factor plays into the appreciation, I think.

It's the seeds.

Love the fruits. Wouldn't want the plants on my land, but am very glad they're in plentiful supply around the city. (Guess that makes me a blackberry NIMBY?)

UW is hiring goats to come get rid of their blackberries. I haven't seem them in action yet, but I want to.

Yay blackberries!

Yay goats!

I don't know what you're talking about Dan. Blackberries are fantastic, especially in pies.

Careful where you're picking berries around here- lots of people spray them with some pretty nasty pesticides.

Pie sucks.

The harvesting of blackberries in Seattle indicates the impending end of summer. It breaks my heart every year.

12 - Who in the world would spray an invasive weed with pesticides?

Dan is just doing his Dan Savage impression.

i hate pie, i hate cobbler, i don't eat candy, i loathe confections of all sorts. i love berries. almost all of them. LOVE THEM! i go through two pounds a week, easy. ras, black, blue...mmm...all my favorites. (not so big on straw, though.) what i do really hate however, is figs. they look like internal organs and really make me barf. and greg behrendt, of course. i hate him too.

Ever seen "The Good Girl"?

Ever since I've been wary of blackberries... yes I know it's a work of fiction, but the thought of puking myself to death creeps me out.

This post sounds like a bitter gay version of a song from Sound of Music:

"along with pit bulls, smoking in cars carrying kids, dogs in restaurants, comments from trolls, trolling for comments, and, of course, cripples on buses."

..all this is missing is whiskers on kittens.

er, HERBicides.

Aw, shit - don't let everyone else in on it. I love that I'm generally the only person in my favored blackberry-picking field - the last thing I need is to have to compete with you fuckers for them.

Dan's right. They suck. Stay away from them.

Oh, and Dan: you forgot Muslims.

mmmm blackberry cobbler ... mouth watering

15 - Unless you have some confidence that your favorite patch of blackberries is not sprayed, then it is entirely possible that a road crew or parks maintenance crew or homeowner's contractor sprayed pesticides.

The word category pesticides includes herbicides, plant growth regulators, seed germination inhibitors, insecticides, arachnicides, rodenticides, fungicides, and anything else intended to kill or interfere with the life cycle of pest organisims.

Pest organisms is a category which may include an invasive weed.

Blackberries are yummy, especially the stems and branches, very brambly and slightly sweet. I could munch on them all day.

And invasive weed patches can be habitat for other species considered pests, such as ants, or rats.

I agree that only an idiot would consider spraying a bunch of poison into the world to be the best idea for any of those problems. But it is commonly done nonetheless.

Sooo... should I not be eating them as I walk the Burke-Gilman?

Figs are fantastic if eaten right off the tree. Nothing is better.

Unless your wife's name is Livia and she got to the figs first.

I recently discovered that blackberries are really delicious, especially blackberry sorbet.

Okay, Dan, please balance this out with what you actually LIKE. Aside from musicals, which I generally hate.

oh, pooh on Dan's alleged crochetyness; any man who adores Sondheim and I,Claudius is A-OK in my book...

sidenote: Sian Phillips IS a Goddess...

bleeeeeh!!!

BLEEEEEEEEH!!!!!

you forgot rock music.

I now have this urge to comb the Udistrict on my lunch break, looking for blackberry cobbler. Mmmmmmm... I wonder if they'll have ice cream too. :D

I might have to wait until I return home to the Hill to actually find it though. :(

And about the UW's goats... it's so wierd. I came to campus this week, bright and early, and as I walk out of the trees I see a small electric fence. Odd. Then I get closer and see a pile-o-goat sitting in the service entrance to the Hospital Parking garage. Yet odder. They're still there today... munching away at ivy, blackberry, and other greenery. Baby goats, old goats, and everything in between.

Dan's the only writer that can ispire 32 comments (and counting) on a post about blackberries.

Also, I love the term cripple. One of my favorite moments from South Park is the cripple fight between Timmy and that other cripple (I forget his name)...

OK, here's my naive botanical question.

Why is it that blackberries are common weeds here, but not raspberries or other types of berries? What is it about raspberries that's different than blackberries other than taste and color? And why aren't they just as invasive as blackberries?

#12 and #26 ...in my neighborhood you have to be careful you don't gather the breeies that are sprayed with crack pee

Blackberry season is when birds around here shit technicolor instead of black-and-white.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I guess I better bring a basket on my walk around Discovery Park tomorrow.

I love fresh berries picked ripe off the non-native invasive weed.

How much is the UW paying these goats to eat the blackberry bushes? And aren't they just going to poop them out again, thus spreading the plants?

In truth, there really is only one blackberry bush on the west coast. It begins somewhere down on the Monterey Peninsula and ends somewhere north of the 49th parallel. It's sort of in the same category as Twinkies which were only made once, but continue to thrive nonetheless because of an inordinately long shelf-life.

#34 - Jimmy

Hmmm....... sounds like Dan hasn't had a good bowel movement in a while.

Blackberries are The Dark Lord's fruit.

I grew up in Sydney, Australia where blackberries grow everywhere. My Mum loved gardens but hated gardening and generally lived in abject terror of nature. She ultimately got her way with a huge rockery garden complete with waterfall, pond and fountain.

And, as you might expect, being the eldest son in an Irish Catholic family the task of looking after the garden fell to me.

Did you know that blackberries love rockeries? They grew everywhere - under every rock, and entwined in every plant and tree. I’m not talking about the fluffy-bunny, touchy-feely, bountiful fruit kind you see here in the North-west… oh no. I’m talking about the enormous flesh-gouging and blood-feasting kind with long arching wrist-thick stalks and tiny mean berries.

The kind that you cut back and pull out with blood covered arms on a Sunday and have grown back before the wounds they inflicted have even scabbed over to begin healing. They grew with the unnatural vigor that only comes through unholy compacts with dark powers. Yes, I hates them precioussss.

Even though they are evil to their tiny diamond hard tooth-destroying seeds, He Who Must Be Obeyed (my guy) loves them. For his recent birthday I made him a Spice Cake with Blackberry filling and Cream Cheese Frosting which got pretty good reviews.

Yet with every bite there was this uneasy feeling and the slight metallic tang of my own blood on my tongue.

~GC

P.s. If you decide to make the cake, I recommend making two batches to get enough height and I used 2 nine inch pans for each batch to avoid cutting. I also cut down the confectioners’ sugar in the frosting by one cup (to 4 cups – Christ in a coma!)

@42 - a big bowl of blackberries would solve that in no time, of course.

everybody ... everybody ... dan wants us to look at him for a while. okay, okay. wait ... a little more. okay, dan. happy?

Hey Mike in MO, I'm pretty sure we'd have double the comments if Charles wrote a piece on blackberries.

@35 - I can't give you a very detailed answer, but suffice it to say that, although raspberries and blackberries are in the same genus, they are in different subgenera (I didn't even know there was a division between genus and species, so I can't tell you much more than that). But basically, they're different plants and act in different ways. Raspberries do grow very well in this part of the world, they just don't get quite as psycho as blackberries.

Racist!

Watch out for the native trailing blackberry, Rubus ursinus. It's a sweetie and deserves your love:

http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/pi/go-native/PlantDisplay.aspx?PlantID=77

First rock n' roll, and now blackberries. Sheesh, it's a good thing I don't take the Stranger seriously. I'd have to be worried ...

First rock n' roll and now blackberries. Sheesh, it's a good thing I don't take Dan and/or the Stranger seriously ...

My Border Collie loves to eat blackberries off the vine. If only we could get the pit bulls to attack black berries and car smoking parent trolls.

the reason you hate blackberries is you've probably only had the himalayan, which are everywhere, & suck ass compared to the native variety.

also sucking ass are the cut-leaf variety. bitter & seedy.

there are hardly any native vines growing wild.

COMMENT DELETED: Sock-Puppetry

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I HATED the slog today!!! UNTIL I read this... This made me smile : )

Should we ban them like gay marriage, Dan?

Great, now everyone else is going to scarf my blackberries.

How am I going to get breakfast and dinner walking to and from work now?

Just frickin great ...

Dan,

Never have I disagreed with you about something so vehemently--blackberries are amazing. But it warms my heart to see the I, Claudius reference.

Dan, would you eat a blackberry if the bush was recently pee-ed on by a pit bull, one who was smoking near children?

Yeah, I would be skepitcal of eating anything picked off a very public bush.

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