How Picking Black Raspberries Gives Me Mindful Time

I love black raspberry season. For me, it lasts the summer as I pick in July and freeze my berries for jam making. My vines have spread over the years, and I now have enough to make a yearly batch of jams that my friends love to receive. That’s a big part of my why of growing them - the sharing the resulting jam. Also sharing the canes themselves. I enjoy digging up some each year to give to gardening friends who want to grow their own breakfast spread. The process is also important to me. I have to tend to them a bit in each season to get my reward each July, when I can go outside each day and get a few cups of beautiful fruit. When it’s time to pick, I know I have a solid block of time to myself to think. If you like to use current terms - mindful time.

It is incredibly meditative to pick berries off a thorny vine. While my mind can wander away from the berry patch once I’m in a rhythm, I need to keep focus on where the thorns are, and where that bit of Stinging Nettle in the patch is, so that my hand doesn’t brush up against it, leaving me, well, stinging for at least a day.  Other than those two concerns my brain can soar.

You have to hunt for black raspberries. They don’t present themselves like tomatoes do, all large and obvious.  Raspberries are somewhat more subtle, despite their bright colours that contrast so distinctly with their leaves. While 5 berries grow at the end of a branch, there is usually one back a bit, underneath the leaves on that branch. The leaves provide some shade, and unless you get yourself at eye level with your plant, you’re going to miss a good percentage of your crop. Leaves need to be lifted and moved aside, prickly branches must be tamed, to get at the bounty. Plucking the juicy, bright berries from a bird’s eye view will give you a nice bowlful, but it may not be enough for jars of jam to share with friends - the highest use of the berries.

So, yes, Patience and Noticing are the important skills to bring to black raspberry picking. Those two things, time, and tight sleeves that won’t catch on the thorns.  This is a low risk activity to grow your abilities.  If you’re not patient by nature, let yourself practice patience as you look over, under and through the bushes a few times before leaving them for the day, knowing you’ll need to do the same thing tomorrow, since the berries ripen over a couple of weeks.  Should Noticing be an area you want to strengthen, there is ample, delicious reward in bringing your most observant self to the berry patch.