It's blackberry season again! Blackberries are a sort of "gateway food" for foragers, being familiar, easy to recognize, and fairly available even without driving somewhere and hiking five miles into the wilderness. So, here for your consideration are my personal foraging guidelines:
Practice gratitude
Thank the plants and/or your preferred deity, or just take a moment to contemplate the marvel of bio-machines that convert earth, water, and sunlight into food. If you're setting out to collect a lot of berries, why not take the plants a little gift, like some water or weak worm/compost tea? Yes, the plants won't really understand what you're doing, it's all symbolic, but there are some indications that plants can sense our emotions or intentions, and anyway being nice to other living things is a good habit to get into.
Share
Take what you'll use, but don't pick too closely -- that is, leave the berries that will be at their peak tomorrow -- and try to leave some for the next forager (human or not). If you're young and athletic (or even just not all that ancient and reasonably vigorous) why not leave the easy-to-reach stuff for casual nibblers and the less agile? If you end up with more than you want, offer some to friends and neighbors or run it down to the Food Bank.
Especially, remember that humans aren't the only berry-lovers around, so if your patch is anywhere there might be wildlife, plan accordingly. Bears are particularly fond of berries, so go into the woods with plenty of friends and make some noise so other critters will know you're there and try to avoid you.
Expect scratches
Respect the plants, try not to trample or break more than absolutely necessary, and don't go berrying the day before you want to look stunning in a sun dress or show off your carefully cultivated muscles at the beach. Wear heavy clothes and plan to sweat, or dress more lightly and plan to bleed (no, that's not a threat; I personally always choose the second option and come home all scratched up -- but I have cats so I'm used to a certain amount of that anyway).
Esperanta traduko: this post is also available in Esperanto, because Dana is a language geek.
