Why Blackberries are Eve's Fault

The Horror of Blackberry Picking

Due to the idiotic behaviour of our ancestor Eve, getting blackberries to make some jam with is torture. In the Garden of Eden, where Eve had ONE JOB  -  i.e. not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil  -  the blackberries were easy to pick. It was all fine for her, but she had to go and ruin it for the rest of us. 

Blackberry Facts:

1.  The best blackberries are all high up out of reach. This is not because anyone else has been along before you and taken the lower ones. They just automatically grow like that.

2.  Blackberry areas are infested with giant spiders. The spider count is high this year which is due to the fact that the blackberries are better than usual so the spiders know we want to pick them. There were no spiders in the Garden of Eden. Thanks for that, EVE. In the G. of E. blackberry zones were frequented by kittens, puppies and sweet little ducklings. Here we have spiders; also wasps.

3.  All blackberry bushes are equipped with tripwire in the form of suckers made out of military weapons-grade fibres, to trip you up and make you spill your blackberries in the mud. 

4.  Blackberry bushes, despite having vicious prickles of their own, grow interspersed with wild roses which have the most effective thorns ever devised and which will rip through your clothing even if it's made of inch-thick harness leather. The thorns then attach to your leg/arm/face etc. and will not let go due to the reverse-hook design. It jolly well hurts.

5.  Blackberry bushes also surround themselves with savage nettles but believe me they are the least of your problems.

6.  Other accomplices used by blackberry plants include :   a) burrs. These will get all over your entire outfit. That doesn't matter as much as them getting in your hair, which they will certainly do. Burrs in your hair are not a good idea but unavoidable.   b) seeds. You move a dried-out old stalk of some dead umbellifer out of your way, only to have it sprinkle 10,000 seeds into your bucket of pickings. These then have to be picked out later using tweezers - can not be done with fingers.   c) thistledown. This (loads of it) will get in your bucket too and is not removeable by any known means.

7.  The difficulty and danger of obtaining any particular blackberry is in direct proportion to the likelihood of the blackberry turning out to be unripe/mouldy on the side you couldn't see. Allied to this is the fact that the apparent desirability of any blackberry is inversely proportional to the ease of harvesting it.

8. You are certain to get at least 3 ticks when picking blackberries.

So you see what Eve the Mother of Us All has wrought. Mother of all idiots more like.

If she hadn't failed in her one, tiny, mission, we would have been enjoying the cushy conditions she and Adam were provided with in the Thornless Garden where:

1. The blackberries were nice and low down on the plants.

2. Adam and Eve got puppies and ducklings; we get spiders.

3. Blackberry bushes were espaliered neatly against pleasant walls.

4. Note the name, "Thornless" Garden.

5. Nettles in the Garden of Eden had no sting, like Death.

6. Burrs, seeds and thistledown knew their place and kept out of your way. Not that there were any damn burrs, I'm sure of it.

7. ALL the blackberries were in perfect condition in the Garden of Eden.
8. It is a scientific fact that ticks were not invented until after Adam and Eve had left the Garden of Eden.

It could have been like that for us as well, if only Eve hadn't been such a TWIT.

I went to get some blackberries yesterday, and I can tell you it was agony. I got back with my delicate violinist's hands (hem hem) all lacerated and stained and my whole self stung, scratched and bitten.

Here they are, the swines. Along with plenty of maggots, dust, thistle bits and umbellifer seeds all of which ought to be laboriously removed. However our family has a robust antibody bank so I don't bother much.

Also you need apples to make the jam set. These are no trouble to harvest and you don't need many anyway. Someone in the Garden of Eden Ruining Committee missed a chance here.

Here's what I made: a year's supply of Blackberry and Thistledown Jam. Curse it. When you eat some in a few months' time the lovely taste of blackberries is supposed to transport you back to balmy summer days. My foot. It will just remind me of being stung, arachnophobic terror, and my hairdo all ruined by burrs while vast thorns hooked into me.

The suffering that went into producing this is beyond the duty of any mother.

This is to prove what a good set you get thanks to the apples :    

No thanks to the blackberries, or to Eve.