Berries Galore

It's berry season! We have had fun these past couple weeks picking berries. We started at the blueberry field over in Tacoma. Apparently the Tacoma School District bought the blueberry field with the intention of building a high school. When that didn't come to fruition, the school district traded the blueberry field for a portion of another park's land which was used to build an elementary school. Now we have this beautiful field, maintained by volunteers, where we can pick blueberries for free!

The blueberries were kind of small, and it seemed that many of the berries I picked looked ripe but were just a tad on the sour side. Tiffany told me that if you leave them on your counter for a couple hours they will ripen up. So, I left them out overnight and they are sweet! They didn't get any bigger (haha), but that's okay - they were free! We ate lots of them and then froze some to enjoy later in the year. I found out how to freeze them here. They say not to wash them before freezing, but I did because we love to eat them frozen, right out of the freezer. Yum!

Last week my sisters-in-law invited us to go blackberry picking with them. Tate wasn't very excited at first but discovered that he loved picking blackberries! He had more self control than with the blueberries (which all disappeared after he got a nearly full bowl). Tate actually walked away with bowl overflowing with plump blackberries. We had so much fun picking blackberries we decided to do it again yesterday here at the condo. We have a little park that is lined with delicious blackberry bushes, and I think we picked it clean.

I learned a lot about blackberries from my new favorite berry resource listed above. Unfortunately I find the site a little difficult to navigate so I'm doing a blackberry link here. Unfortunately blackberries don't ripen after they are picked so we had to be really careful to only pick the ripe ones. I also learned that you shouldn't wash them until you're ready to eat them - they'll stay fresh longer. It's pretty disgusting to grab a moldy blackberry, so I'm glad I read this tip!

Last night we made blackberry milkshakes, and I am excited to try a blackberry crisp. Tonight we are having a white sheet cake (the best way to have cake! Thanks for all your tips and tricks, Tiff). We will spread cool whip on top and sprinkle blackberries on top. Can't wait!

I didn't get any pictures of our blackberry adventure yesterday, but here are some from last year when we were on a walk exploring our new neighborhood.

With all these yummy fresh summer fruits we are experiencing fruit flies in the kitchen...one of the summer traits I could do without! I'm going to try this sour trick below. Goodbye fruit flies! Mwahahaha!

Getting Rid of Fruit Flies/Gnats in Your Kitchen:

Place a bowl filled with ½ quart water, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar and a couple of drops of dish soap to attract the fruit flies. Always eliminate the source of attraction, i.e., ripened produce.