The sun shone at the right time but not too harshly, and the rain provided just about the perfect amount of watering. As a result, gardeners, foragers and fans of fruity puddings in many parts of the UK are relishing one of the most abundant, juiciest blackberry crops for years.
“It’s a really good year,” said John Myers, the head gardener at the National Trust’s Ham House in London. “Conditions have been just about perfect. We had a nice May and June when the temperatures were good. June was warm but not too hot, allowing the flowers to take up enough nutrients and the pollinators to do their thing. Then after June we had quite a lot of rain, which did the berries a world of good, plumping them up. In the last few weeks it’s been warm, meaning they’ve ripened really well.”
