Secret Delights

Blacka Blogger's obsessive love of bilberries tempts him to keep quiet about this. But even he cannot eat all the fruit available this year. There is a truly bumper crop. Yet many a casual passer by may not know that. The trick is to pull up the bracken and reveal the berries beneath. The surprise is because we do not expect good things to be growing under such a dense cover. But bracken is a latecomer to the peculiar vegetation on Blacka. While it is totally dormant in early Spring the bilberry is flowering and being pollinated so by the time the bracken wakes up and races ahead in July and August all the fruit producing work has been done.

Two years ago was an excellent year for bilberry. Last year's was a modest harvest. But this year is the best in my memory with berries even on the more exposed and sensitive parts. All you need to do is pull up the bracken shoots first. This is best done by a vertical snatch. Two minutes clearing of the fronds will give you ten minutes of happy bilberry harvesting. And remember that nutritionists claim purple fruits to be more full of vitamins and antioxidants than any other foodstuff. But who cares about that when the taste is so good?