Some of our earliest memories on the farm aren’t tied to infrastructure or livestock, they’re tied to small, ordinary moments that revealed what this land already held.
Not long after we’d purchased the property, we woke before the day warmed and stepped outside with buckets in hand. The land was still unfamiliar then, overgrown and largely untouched, but generous in its own way. Blackberries were everywhere spilling over fences, edging paddocks, thick and unruly in corners that hadn’t seen attention for years. If you walked past quietly enough, you could often spot little rabbits hiding in the bushes.
Harrison rode on Alex’s shoulders as we made our way down, crossing the creek and heading toward a small corner of the property completely overrun with blackberry vines.
The vines were heavy with fruit. We filled our buckets quickly and easily, though Harrison was convinced the berries were better eaten than collected.
Despite his best efforts to sample the harvest as we went, we managed to gather a full pail.
Turning Fruit Into Something That Lasts
Later that day, those blackberries became jam.
There’s something deeply satisfying about preserving food grown — or in this case, found — on your own land. The process is simple, repetitive, and grounding: washing fruit, stirring pots, filling jars, letting the kitchen fill with warmth and scent.
We used a recipe from Not Just Jam by Matthew Evans , a cookbook that values simplicity and good ingredients over perfection. From that one bucket of berries, we made nine jars of jam.
Those jars lasted us several weeks. Some were kept for our own table. Others were gifted a quiet way of sharing the land’s abundance with friends and family.
I remember that day fondly. At the time, I desperately wanted to have our own food systems established and gardens planted, and it was deeply satisfying to realise the land was already offering food. It reminded us that self-sufficiency doesn’t always begin with building sometimes it begins with noticing and making use of what’s already around you.
The blackberry vines were unruly and inconvenient in many ways, but they were also generous. They gave freely, without planning or intention on our part.
Unfortunately, blackberries are considered a declared weed where we live, so they eventually had to be removed. In time, we hope to establish a berry patch of our own one better suited to the land, and thornless this time and once again make jam from fruit grown here.
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