September, for me, was blackberry month. Blackberries were late coming this year and then they hung around for a long time. yippee!

I made a full size batch of blackberry wine which is in the carboy fermenting. Last year I only got to make a small batch, so that was first on my list this year.

I also made a small batch of blackberry mead, using a recipe from First Ways blog, which is an excellent blog with photos and step by step instructions.

I also made a pie, of course, but having already done pies and jams during salmonberry and raspberry season, I was looking for some variety. I made a blackberry chutney, that tasted alot like cranberry sauce; so I froze some for Thanksgiving. Made a recipe from Martha Stewart for blackberry/red wine jello.

A blackberry cheesecake.

By then I'd had about as much sugar as I could swallow, I don't have a huge sweet tooth, so I tried some less sweet ideas. Blackberries added to oatmeal. Blackberries added to my kombucha (shown next to the raspberry kombucha made last month)

I re-use glass jars cause I don't like to use plastic.

Blackberry kefir smoothie; which did have some honey.

And then I decided to try some non-food ideas.

Blackberry ink, which is the juice with some salt to preserve it. I'll post some pics once I get creative with it.

And finally, I'm trying out using it as a dye, although the sites I found said that the color will wash out and brown out with washing and light exposure, but it seemed like a shame not to try to capture some of that gorgeous color!

After all that, I still have a couple of containers of berries frozen for deep winter when I will crave a warm pie.

I understand why people don't like the blackberry vines here, as they are very invasive, grow fast and the thorns are not fun. The Blackberry Goddess demands payment in blood! The berries are wonderful, though.

So far, I don't have much competition in picking them; all this was from a half block area at the end of my street. I noticed the hazelnut bushes after the season had passed by a couple of weeks, next year I'll have my eye out for those, too. You can never have too much free food!