A good berry has a little weight to it.

It has been too long since my last post. I have been preparing my home for sale and finally have the sign in the ground.  As I’ve been making improvements to my house, I am warmed by the bounty of my small urban garden.

August is blackberry month at my house.  From about the first or second week of the month onward, we can pick very large (picture 2″) berries, dripping with antioxidants, fiber, vitamins C, K, A, folic acid and much more.  Blackberries have a very high oxygen radical absorbant capacity (ORAC) value.  If you’re not familiar with “free radicals,” they are not the anarchists who hang out at the corner picketing for chaos, rather they are the chemical byproducts that float around the body and either get eliminated by antioxidants in our food or they build up and cause more problems.  Blackberries are one of the top antioxidant-rich foods.  Blackberries help our bodies to eliminate those dangerous byproducts.  Why go to the rain forest when you can grow a healthy, productive plant in your own yard, unless you have no yard of course?

What is not to like about the blackberry?  Well, nothing really, unless you don’t want thorns.  The variety I grow in my garden is thornless, which makes it safe around children.  And, yes, they love to pick and these these tasty, nutrient-dense foods and leave dark stains on my porch.  Sigh – all in the name of good health.

If you’re not blessed with an abundant garden, then pick up a container of antioxidant-rich blackberries and eliminate those chemical byproducts from your body.  In the meantime, I wish you happy abundance wherever you live.

The seeds of a blackberry are high in Omega-3 and -6s.

My daughter just had to leave some for the robins. The sticks were empty the next day.