Organic Blackberries
One of our many projects on our "homestead" or minifarm is a rather large blackberry patch. At slightly less than 1/4 acre, it does not really qualify as a farm, but produces lots of sweet, thumb-size, wonderully nutritious blackberries.
|
Nutrient |
1/2 Cup fresh Blackberries provides: |
Adult Daily Requirement |
|
Protein |
1 gram |
|
|
Dietary Fiber |
7 grams |
|
|
Potassium |
282 milligrams |
2000 mg/day |
|
Calcium |
46 milligrams |
1000 mg/day |
|
Phosphorus |
30 milligrams |
700 mg/day |
|
Magnesium |
28 mg |
310 to 420 mg/day |
|
Manganese |
1.9 mg |
2-5 mg/day |
|
Iron |
0.8 mg |
10 to 15 mg/day |
|
Selenium |
0.9 mg |
70 micrograms/day |
|
Zinc |
0.4 mg |
15 mg/day |
|
Copper |
trace |
1.5 to 3 mg/day |
|
Vitamine A |
237 IU |
10,000 IU/day |
|
Vitamine C |
30 mg |
60 mg/day |
|
Vitamine E |
1.5 IU |
30 IU/day |
|
Folate (B9) |
49 micrograms |
400 micrograms/day |
See Detailed information about Blackberry Nutrition here
This project started with the idea of catching the infrequent rain water from our roof and making good use of it rather than watching it run down the hill. It wasn't oo difficult to put together a system of gutters, downspouts, drain pipes, and cisterns to harvest the water. Storing the water from the winter snows and summer monsoon rains gives us adequate water, at no cost, to drip irrigate the blackberry plants.
Goat milk blackberry ice cream topped with fresh berries. Yum!