As an inner city child, one of the things I looked forward to every summer was a trip to the countryside to pick berries. It was a simple, tactile pleasure enjoyed by my parents and their parents before them, each generation hunting and gathering in much the same way.
All photos © Moxie Gardiner.
Every June, we would make our annual trek to a strawberry patch in Brant, NY, not far from our cottage in Angola. We would spend hours going up and down the rows with our flimsy little wooden crates, looking for the biggest, juiciest strawberries. The aroma was heavenly—you could smell the warm strawberries as soon as you got out of the car—and no one seemed to mind if you popped one or two (or a dozen) in your mouth as you worked along the rows.
The sun warmed your back and turned it as red as the strawberries, particularly if you went picking in your bathing suit after a day at the beach. But on the farms not far from Lake Erie, there always seemed to be a nice, cool breeze to keep you going. That and visions of delights yet to come: strawberry shortcake, strawberry milkshakes, strawberries on ice cream, strawberries on cereal, and later, as we grew older, strawberry daiquiris! For the adults, “strawberry back” had a different meaning, after a few hours bending over the low-growing plants.
(All quotes are from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry-Picking”)
As summer wore on, the strawberry-gathering ritual was replaced by blackberry picking, a far more perilous adventure that took us to the wild places. While strawberries are a cultivated crop, blackberries and black raspberries, at least those of my youth, grew on steep hillsides and along country roads.
Black raspberries are small and easier to pick, but the larger, plumper, tastier blackberries are protected by nasty thorns. You have to really love blackberries to go after those babies.
Our fingers got scratched and pricked and sometimes we ended up with poison ivy, but when we found a good patch full of ripe berries, we gathered and ate until our stomachs ached. Once found, their location became a jealously guarded secret, much like the wild gardoon patches in the heart of the city.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,“
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.”
One of my favorite Irish poets, Seamus Heaney, wrote about blackberry picking as a metaphor for childhood enthusiasms and disappointments. Like every Holy Grail of youth, the poem speaks to how once tasted, one will go to any lengths to obtain the succulent wild berries, and how, like so many fruits of summer and childhood, are far too quickly gone.
“I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.“
As I began to write this blog, I wondered, how many children, especially those living in cities today, are able to experience the fleeting joy of berry picking? I see from a quick online search that trips to pick-your-own strawberry farms are recommended as a healthy, outdoor activity for families with small children during this pandemic. However, I found no such encouragement for blackberry picking. Too much trouble, I suppose, in these days of triple-washed, packaged fruit, and in fairness, with encroaching development, wild blackberry patches are fewer and harder to find. But you can only truly know the deliciousness of a blackberry, I firmly believe, if you have, at least once, gone to the trouble of picking your own.
As an adult, I still enjoy harvesting berries, and unlike poor youthful Seamus, I’ve learned to eat only what I am able, and quickly freeze or preserve the rest as sauces, jams and jellies.
This preservation strikes me as a metaphor for life as well. Capture what you can of the “essence” of summer—and of youth—without trying to cling to something that cannot stay.
Do you have fond memories of berry-picking? Write to me and tell me your stories! I look forward to hearing from you.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.