My kitchen is not ready for blackberry jam. I am not ready for blackberry jam. The heat of summer is still beating through my windows; the grass is still a brown dust; I haven’t corralled my jars or set aside preserving time. Nor have I turned my thoughts towards the fruit. I still think of blackberries as a back-to-school fruit: a signifier of autumn and all that goes with it. It just doesn’t feel like blackberry season. But it is, and the brambles wait for no woman.

For several years now, the blackberries have been coming earlier and earlier. Right now, the ones near me are at perfect ripeness. A few days ago, they were tight, reluctant to let go of their star-like calyx. They may have looked dark and inky, having changed from their earlier pallid pink, but they weren’t ready. Now it’s different.

There is a point where the berries on the brambles start to change; when it feels like they become three-dimensional. Their drupelets are plump, and when they burst, they stain fingers and mouths a blue-black – so different to the brighter purple of the less ripe fruit. The smell and taste is noticeably different: the berries are more interesting now. They’re sweeter than they once were, their tartness only a background note, but they’re more complicated too, perfumed and floral, with darker, boskier notes.

It just doesn’t feel like blackberry season. But it is, and the brambles wait for no woman

It just doesn’t feel like blackberry season. But........

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