Brambles, or wild blackberries, start in late August and continue into October, weather and fellow foragers allowing. They peek through hedges, line fields and meadows, spring up along the woodland paths and by the side of the roads. Thorny enough not to be messed with – it will grab at your clothes and hair with the power of original barbed wire. Foragers: don gloves. <br /> <br />Bramble picking would be the nicest and the most rewarding type of foraging – if it wasn’t for the pips. <br />Even if you aren’t the spoilt type who goes for seedless raspberry in the jam aisle, brambles are REALLY pippy. I grudgingly go for cultivated blackberries in cakes – rich flavour, palatable pips. For jamming though, shop bought fruit is usually too expensive even if you want to make just a couple of jars. <br />Jelly then – which is basically seedless jam, rather than jellied fruit juice. I thought you couldn’t get away without one of those scary wasp nest-like contraptions suspended half a mile above a collecting jar, but you can easily make do with a colander and muslin cloth.

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