Food from the Ditch

Well that sounds disgusting, doesn’t it?  Not really.  The property just over the road that runs in front of our home is overgrown.  It hasn’t been planted in rice or soybeans in about five years (maybe more than that) and small trees are starting to grow up where agricultural crops once grew.  That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing edible in there, though.

Each year around this time, we keep a watchful eye for blooms in the ditch across the road that signal the soon arrival of dewberries.  Dewberries are a little bigger and juicier than blackberries.  They also ripen a little earlier than blackberries in our area.  They have runners that have a red tinge to them with thorns and they fill the levee and ditch across the road.

Ripe Dewberries

That’s when we get containers and spread out along the roadside ditch looking for berries.  In addition to looking out for dewberries, Tricia also looks out for snakes.

Mom & Son berry pickin'

We generally use quart-sized yogurt or sour cream containers and then have a larger bowl or colander that we dump into as we fill our cups.  With Tricia, Benjamin and I picking, it didn’t take long at all to harvest a gallon from the roadside.  What an easy crop!  You don’t have to plant it, weed it, water it, or tend to it.  The Good Lord takes care of all of that for you.

A quart of fresh berries

Since dewberries have thorns, we get scratched up when picking them, but that’s just part of it.  Usually the plumpest berry is in the hardest to reach place, and you must stick your hand deep into the bushes to get the best ones.  A lot of them will bust in your hand, leaving you with purple fingers.  And of course, you have to eat a few just right off the vine.  It doesn’t get any fresher than that!

A handful of dewberries

We’ll bring them in and wash them up as there are countless little critters like stink bugs and worms crawling on them.  You have to handle them carefully, though because you don’t want them to bust open and lose all the sweet juice that is within the purple-black berry. 

Cleaned up

Once they are completely dry, we’ll process them to separate the juice from the pulp and seeds.

Ready for processing

Then we’ll make dewberry jelly, dewberry pie or muffins, or Tricia will make a syrup by cooking down the juice with a little honey or sugar and we’ll pour that into homemade ice cream to make dewberry ice cream.  That has become a family favorite.  Lots of people buy their own blackberry or dewberry canes to grow and I’ve often thought about buying some and planting them in the yard, especially the thornless varieties, but as long as they grow on their own in the ditch across the road for free, well… I think I’ll just continue letting them grow on their own.

That reminds me.  I don’t think a gallon is near enough.  Benjamin spotted more dewberries growing a little farther down the ditch.  I think I’ll go pick them some more after work today.