It’s Blackberry Picking Season in the Yakima Valley

Our digital guru JT invited me to his home in the nether regions of Selah to pick blackberries this weekend. In the store, blackberries are about $3.99 a pound, which seems silly to pay since they grow wild all over Washington.

If you do plan to pick them yourself, I offer a word of warning: What you don't pay for in cash you'll pay for in a pound of flesh. Blackberry bushes are VERY thorny and even have tiny thorns on the undersides of their leaves. I still have what appear to be heroin-addict puncture marks on the inside of my forearm.

In the end I picked about 2 pounds of blackberries and had fun doing it. Then I channeled my inner old lady, bought some pectin and made homemade fresh seedless organic blackberry jam. I made about three times what you'd pay $5.29 for in a store for just $3 (the price of the pectin and the jam).

As you can see in the photo, there are a lot of blackberries that aren't even ripe yet. JT has made me a standing offer to come back in two weeks. Can't wait!