I’ve been lucky enough to live in places where I’ve been able to pick wild berries from time to time. I’ve also gone to berry farms to pick berries as well. I first remember picking berries in a vacant lot down the street from where I lived. The blackberry bush there wasn’t very big and it didn’t have great exposure and irrigation so there weren’t many berries and they didn’t get super sweet, but I still enjoyed them.
We have berry farms along the coast that we visit during the berry season. We really like the strawberries we get from this organic farm and there’s a place where we can get great ollaliberries. We never seem to get out there during raspberry season, but maybe we should shoot for doing that this year.
My favorite berry picking memories include picking blackberries with my wife and sons from one of the paddle boats on Stow Lake in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. I think the biggest, juciest and sweetest blackberries I’ve ever picked came from along the road on one of the San Juan islands off the coast of Washington. My wife and I were bicycling around the island and came across these incredible berry bushes. They were amazing.
I didn’t pick any blackberries last year, but I hope to find some good bushes this year.