Blackberry Season: The Delicious Scourge Of Puget Sound Is Here To Stay

WOODINVILLE, WA - Every year toward the end of every summer, right between giant spider season and wildfire season, we get blackberry season. It's the time of year when forearm-thick canes covered in thorns stretch out over sidewalks and hiking paths bearing bundles of tart blackberries. The blackberries are everywhere, either sticking out of a crack in the Alaskan Way Viaduct or along the shoulder of the Iron Horse Trail.

The blackberries are so abundant, it feels a little strange to be surrounded by so many medieval-looking plants - it almost feels like they've taken over as the most common plant around.

According to Steven Burke, manager of King County's noxious weed program, blackberries were brought to the Pacific Northwest over 100 years ago from Europe. There are two main species of blackberry here: the "parent" that came from Europe, and a hybrid of that European blackberry and the native Pacific Northwestern blackcap and trailing varieties. Those natives, along with salmonberry, another member of the blackberry family, don't produce as much fruit but are said to be sweeter than the European evergreen.

It's almost impossible to say who brought the blackberries here first, Burke said. But the blackberries have been here for so long, they're pretty much here to stay. Total eradication of the invasive species at this point would be difficult.

The bushes are easy to ignore when seen from the highway or in your neighbor's yard (in fact, you should take advantage of the plants and collect the fruit). But if one of those thick, thorny stalks is creeping over your fence, what do you do?

"The big canes are intimidating, but they can be tracked to a root crown," Burke said. "You can track down the growth to the crown, and it's hard this time of year [because of the dry ground], but after fall rains, just get a pitchfork and pull it out."

Burke said that birds, mostly, spread the seeds of the evergreen blackberry around the region. The plants can also spring dig into the ground and spread that way.

If the ground's too dry to dig up the blackberries, then there's nothing left to do but eat the fruit.

To find learn more about noxious weed eradication, visit King County's resource center. And here's a link to some blackberry recipes.

Image via Pixabay