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I had my very first blueberry from a few year old plant a couple of days ago! It was lovely and sweet. It seems to have been the only one on there, so fingers crossed for a bigger crop next year.

I have more blackberries than I know what to do with, though. Would I be alright making jam with them, and a couple of cooking apples I've got going spare? I'd need jam sugar, wouldn't I, since I don't have any pectin? Any other suggestions? We've already had them on their own, with cream, and in a crumble.

Hiya, I think you'd be able to use crab apples as a source of pectin. Last year i made rowan berry jelly using crab apples for the pectin and it turned out really well. HTH.
Kate

Any apples are a good source of pectin so no worries there. I know the weather's been fantastic down there but are the blackberries ripe enough yet? I always associate them with late summer.

So if I throw in the two cooking apples the jam should set? Cool. Re.: ripeness, the blackberries out and about aren't ripe yet, but the majority of ones in my garden are. Must be because they're in a sheltered spot I guess.

I use lemon juice for pectin in bramble jelly. Our blackberries aren't ripe yet either, it's usually about mid August onwards here.

We had our first real crop of blackberries this weekend and we had a handful the weekend before. They always arrive at the same time we are picking the last of our raspberries (Glen Ample). But this was 1 to 2 weeks later than previous years, I guess because of the cold winter. Usually we pick our first real crop of blackberries in the 2nd week of July and they run for 5 or 6 weeks, by which time the wild ones in the cemetry are in full flood.
We grow a few blueberries, but I can't understand why people rave about them, compared to other fruits, such as blackcurrants and blackberries, they are comparatively tasteless - or am I just getting old.

We have had a huge yield of blackberries , they are in a sheltered spot and we had enough to make 30 jars of jam, we are now awaiting the second cropping.
most apples give a good source of pectin, failing that a good shot of lemon juice will do the job proudly.

grahamhobbs wrote:We grow a few blueberries, but I can't understand why people rave about them, compared to other fruits, such as blackcurrants and blackberries, they are comparatively tasteless - or am I just getting old.

I always wondered what was the big deal about them too as I'd only ever eaten them cooked i.e. American blueberry muffins and couldn't taste the damn things but raw, so long as you let them ripen properly (and there's quite a fine line there) they are really sweet, so quite unlike blackcurrants or even blackberries. And no pips or nasty hard centres either.

It's my first year of a proper harvest as previously the poor bush was chlorotic and lost in a corner of the veg patch under a massive amount of self seeded nasturtiums and I kept forgetting to pick what few berries it had. Now I can really appreciate it and it is putting on lots of new growth so hopefully more berries next year!