162. Blackberries, Black Berries, and BlackBerrys

ZOWIE!  There is a lot of interest in the garden-along.  I'm thrilled.  Someone said we need a button.  Anyone up for designing one? 

I was at work until very late last night.  Michael Pollan's talk was great!  Standing room only, with a full overflow facility as well. He says Vermont is a leader and role model in the sustainable agriculture movement, and the "rest of the country has its eyes on us."  Of course we already knew that. *wink* 

I had hoped to have him sign my books and make him pose for a picture for the blog.  He was wearing a great t-shirt that said "Vote with your fork." I'm sure he did not even notice the captioner slaving away in the corner in that un-air-conditioned facility.  He noticed the sign language interpreter because at one point the mic cut out and he asked, "Can you hear me?" and got a kick out of the sign language person asking the deaf people, in ASL, "Can you hear me?"  That was kind of excellent.  I love the ASL people, particularly this one who worked this event.  She also worked the Ben Stein event, and she is particularly talented with her body language.   

I had a little fantasy that I would explain that I have a little blog and many of my readers are big fans of his, but the line was just too long and it was too hot in there and I was tooooo exhausted after a very long day, part of which was being in a bit of limbo about whether the event was going to take place or not, because of a tornado watch.  I even intended to bring him a gift of beet greens or something from my garden, but in the end I'm glad I didn't attempt that.  They would have been a wilted mess by the time they got to him, and he was most surely in a hotel room where they would have been unusable anyway.  So it was a nice idea, but kind of impractical. 

Anyway, I got home to all those great emails.  I answered some of the ones that had specific questions with regard to the homework I assigned, and I'll try to address some of those in future posts.  I'm excited that you're excited!  Today I'm going to look in my basement for planting containers -- I feel certain there must be something down there that will be suitable. If not, I'll go out and pick up something reasonably priced, and get some lovely compost-based potting soil.

Meanwhile, let's talk about blackberries, black raspberries, and BlackBerrys.

Yes, Veronica, there is a difference.

Wikipedia has this to say about black raspberries, the kind that I have in my yard: (my photo)

Rubus occidentalis is a species of Rubus native to eastern North America. The common name Black Raspberry is shared with the closely related western American species Rubus leucodermis. Other names occasionally used include wild black raspberry, black caps, black cap raspberry, and thimbleberry.^[1][2]

Rubus occidentalis is a deciduous shrub growing to 2–3 m tall, with thorny shoots. The leaves are pinnate, with five leaflets on leaves strong-growing stems in their first year, and three leaflets on leaves on flowering branchlets. The flowers are distinct in having long, slender sepals 6–8 mm long, more than twice as long as the petals. The round-shaped fruit is a 12–15 mm diameter aggregation of drupelets; it is edible, and has a high content of anthocyanins and ellagic acid.^[3][4]

Black raspberries are high in anthocyanins. This has led to them being very useful as natural dyes and, since anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants, to a great deal of interest in them for their potential nutraceutical value. Extensive work has been ongoing at Ohio State University to evaluate their benefit for cancer treatment in mammalian test systems,^[5] and the first clinical trials on patients with esophageal cancer.^[6]

The black raspberry is also closely related to the red raspberries Rubus idaeus and Rubus strigosus, sharing the distinctively white underside of the leaves and fruit that readily detaches from the carpel, but differing in the ripe fruit being black, and in the stems being more thorny. The black fruit makes them look like Blackberries, though this is only superficial, with the taste being unique and not like either the red raspberry or the blackberry. In much of the Mid-Atlantic United States, black raspberries are simply called Blackberries, even though they are not.

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And then there is the accessory every (very) independent CART and captioning professional needs, which is not your garden-variety blackberry, but of a different genus altogether:

I'm still in the steep learning-curve stage with the BB.  Thank goodness for an afternoon chat with Rachel H., my Toronto Connection. That girl has got it goin' on with the BlackBerry experience. Initially I had my Norma Knits gmail account set to come in automatically, but I couldn't handle all the constant stimulation. Who'd-a thunk I'd actually get tired of being in constant contact with the email?  But it did happen. Really! And quickly, too.  Apparently I am at least mildly sane after all. Now it's just the business email account that comes automatically, which is the real purpose of this phone upgrade, anyway.  I'll have to "wait" for the blog email 'til I can get to it with my laptop.  Oh, the sacrifices we make in order to make a living and maintain just a wee bit of sanity.  Heh.

Is black not your color?  Then how about blue?


Look at those blueberries I've got coming!

P.S.  Life stages seem to be going quite well at the moment for the Norma.

Comments

[Debi]

I never had a Black Berry but I love blackberries - don't own a BlackBerry either :)

[naomi]

Mmmm. Berries are the *best*. (I'll stick to my small, cheap phone, though.)

[margene]

Life does seem to be a bowl of berries for you. Way to go grrl!

[AmyP]

Well, there we are. Thank you for the natural history lesson.

[chris]

Awwww, I love Michael Pollan! I have a couple of his books on request from my library. Also, I need to find the shirt he was wearing! Well, not the ACTUAL shirt, because that would be creepy, but a version of it that I could buy.

Also, have I mentioned how envious I have that you have Teh Berries? I know for sure that blueberries won't grow here, but I may have to try my hand at some other color of berry (hee)!

[Adelaide]

The Norma truly deserves to have her life stages in good order. (Were it not for the deer, I would enthusiastically join with you in the agricultural adventure.)

[Marcia Cooke]

We had wild blackberries in the yard for years, but Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless has succeeded in eradicating them. Tell me about blueberries.....too late to plant if I can find some? And what the heck has killed two of my tomato plants? I blamed marauding squirrels looking for nuts (they do love those raised beds for nut storage), but now I'm thinking cutworms.

[marianne]

Mmmmm, just love all the berries. Dad would bake cobblers using real blackberries and raspberries (red) mixed together, YUM. Cookie has blueberries growing in pots on her patio! I've been pondering about whether I could get away with that or not... I think I'll try.

[Jena (the yarn harpy)]

I already have a container garden started that I'll garden-along with.
I'm about to start seedlings for a flower garden to plant over my beloved pup's grave in my parents' backyard - she passed yesterday in her sleep, one week after her 15th birthday. (She was a beautiful black toy poodle.)

[Jena (the yarn harpy)]

I should have said "I already have a container vegetable garden started..."

[Cheryl S.]

I've got blackberries! Not that they're actually "mine" since the root system is in my neighbor's property, but they arch into my property (there's not much space between our houses). Neither the owner nor the renter has ever given two hoots about them, so I'm the one who endangers live and limb to crawl back there to prune and harvest them. Yum! Ouch! Yum!

We can technically grow blueberries here, but not very well - the soil is too alkaline. Boo hoo!

[Jennifer]

Wow! How cool that you got to hear Michael Pollan speak! I'm planning a visit to Polyface Farm about an hour from my house here in VA someday soon ~ one of the chapters of Omnivore's Dilemna was spent at this farm (the owner, Joel Salatin, is the author of the book "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" on my to-read list).

I'm enjoying your gardening posts, too ... we just created our new garden and I'm gleefully watching my asparagus and strawberries sprout (love these fruits veggies that come back every year all by themselves!).

[Lynn]

Just got me one of them thar BlackBerries (my first cell phone) and so far I can turn it on (and if you read the instruction booklet, you might have noticed that nowhere in there does it actually tell you how to turn it on). Maybe by tomorrow I will have progressed to making a phone call and hopefully by the weekend I'll figure out how to answer it if it rings. Then I gotta figure out what's all them other pitchers in the winder fur.

[jessica~]

What I want to know is.... how long did it take you to link all those links??!?

[Kristine]

Okay, so here's something I'm trying to figure out, and having no luck. I was considering trying some container gardening before you got all pusher on me, but bailed because I'd heard that my landlord sprays for bugs. They did, in fact, last weekend, something that annoys me INCREDIBLY, but let's not go there for now. They say that all you need to do is close your doors and windows and cover anything you can't bring inside -- but does that kind of crap linger in the air, and potentially get into my (imaginary) cucumbers? If you know anything about this, clue me in, otherwise, feel free to ignore me.

[Katie B.]

Personally, I find raspberries/blackberries/etc. enough of a PITA* that I'm quite happy to massacre them out of my own yard and pay exorbitant grocery store prices for them.

But I LOVE berries, and especially raspberries and strawberries, and hope to put in strawberries and blueberries next year...

*pain in the [backside]

[Manise]

I have come to the realization that I really don't like blackberries that much- but black raspberries?? Love them! Much sweeter and a more pleasant texture than the sometimes squishiness of blackberries or the too firm , mouth-puckering not quite ripe ones.

[Angel]

Norma,

I container garden every year (although not this year because I am moving in the middle of summer). On my teeny concrete porch, in the 'hood, i usually grow all my own herbs, 4 tomato plants, 1 small squash plant, tiny carrots in containers, green onions, fresh peas and spinach. Oh and I grew morning glories to cover my nasty railing that hasn't been painted by the cheapo apartment owners for years. It can be done on a grad student's budget and even when you are in a less then optimal place. For the tomatoes I always pick the small kinds (patios and romas work well) and stake them as soon as I plant them. Herbs I keep in small pots and cut back frequently. I grew baby spinach in a large pot along with the peas, (for which I constructed a kitchen-cotton yarn ladder to climb and then twined them around the nasty raining.) Trained the morning glories onto the other side of the railing, and for the squash I got a spacemeiser zuchinni-- its a small squash that is for container gardening. By the end of last summer you could barely navigate your way around my porch to water and pick the veggies, but it was awesome. I had so much fun and so much fresh food. i even had a garter snake that I named "Slithers" who used to come by and hang out in the cool shade of the tomato plants. Everyone in my hood would walk by and comment, from the Mexican moms with kids to the Indian ladies in saris. I felt like an urban garden warrior. So I highly recommend container gardening, especially if you think you have no place to garden.

And the best book, far and away for container gardening is "The Bountiful Container." It is the Bible of container gardening if you want to plants fruits, veggies and herbs.

[lisa]

So 3 of us were gabbing about dog yarn today, and what, really, would one want to make with it... and somebody suggested garden gardians. You could knit creatures out of dog yarn (and I'd add that you could reinforce the doggy aroma with some urine...) to keep certain garden pests at bay. I think it's an idea you should pursue. (hahahahaha)

[Kristen]

Can I just once again say how much I love blackberries? Adore them! Enjoy every last little bit!