The day I arrived at Kancoona Valley Wines, Lise, the other WWOOFer, came back from a walk around the property eating blackberries. I thought, “Wow, they have blackberries here too!”

I wondered why Lena and Joe, the owners, didn’t do more with this treasured fruit. Why didn’t they make blackberry wine or integrate the berries into different dishes served at the Cellar Door Cafe and Restaurant?

As with a lot of things in Australia, I learned the full story on blackberries in the country in Bill Bryson’s book “In a Sunburned Country.” In the book, he explains how blackberries were introduced to Australia and what a pest the fruit has been since then. The weed grows very fast, taking over acres and acres of land if not contained. At Kancoona alone there are a 50 acres of blackberries.

Blackberry vines take over a car at Kancoona Valley Wines. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

While Bryson gives a quick overview of how blackberries came to Australia and what a big problem it is, he neglects to explain how painful the problem can be. Little did I know, I would soon find out.

Lise loves blackberries. She’s walked down to the blackberry bushes almost everyday since I’ve been here, each time collecting only a handful of blackberries. One day, she told Lena and I that she asked her mother for her jelly recipe and was going to make blackberry jelly. Originally from France, this recipe was the real deal.

To make the recipe, Lise had to collect two kilograms of blackberries, boil the berries and filter out the seeds and skin using pantyhose. That’s what I mean by “the real deal.” (Click here to read the full blackberry jelly recipe.)

Used pantyhose on top of seeds and skin left from juicing blackberries. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

Lise bought a new pair of pantyhose and set out to make the jelly one Saturday. She started early, recruiting Maedy, the vineyard owners’ nine-year-old daughter, to help her collect the berries. They were in the bush collecting berries for at least two hours and returned with maybe one and a half kilograms of blackberries.

Lise asked Konrad, the owners’ four-year-old son, if he wanted to try some blackberries. He took a handful and said, “They taste kind of good.”

I guess “They taste kind of good,” is a huge compliment for Konrad, because he spent the rest of the day devouring the fruit. Every time I saw him, his mouth and hands were full of berries, his face remained purple the entire day and there were about ten bowels stacked in the kitchen sink with blackberry residue by the end of the day.

2/24/10-Konrad's blackberry covered teeth. "They taste kind of good," he says while stuffing his face. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

Lise was happy to share, but said it’s so hard to watch people eat the berries so quick, because they have no idea how long and hard it is to pick.

She returned to the bush after a lunch break and collected the rest of the berries she would need to make her mother’s coveted jelly.

Watching the process was fantastic. The metal kitchen glistened with purple and Lise was in the middle of it draining cooked blackberries through a pair of purple-stained pantyhose. It just put into perspective why French food is so delicious. Everything is done so precise and to perfection. After hours in the bush, a few hours in the kitchen and a body full of thorns and scratches, the outcome was three large jars of blackberry jelly and a large glass of extra juice.

That day, we had blackberry everything. Everyone was gobbling down blackberries throughout the day. Then Lise and I drank blackberry smoothies. Then I remembered this blueberry, brandy ice cream I eat at the Balloon Festival in Hamilton, NJ every year and suggested we pour the blackberry juice over vanilla ice cream (Bulla, of course, which is the best ice cream ever). The next morning I woke up and had toast with blackberry jelly.

Blackberries can leave permanent stains on fabric and long-term stains on skin. When cooking with the fruit be sure to use gloves and wear dark-colored clothing. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

It was the perfect start to my first day working in the vineyard, which gave me a new opinion of blackberries.

Lena and Joe have been really good to us, feeding us coffees and chocolates constantly, also allowing us to wake up whenever we want. Lise and I were beginning to feel a bit useless, so we asked if we could do some work in the vineyard. Lena said we could clean up grape vines and weed out blackberry vines. She showed us a little bit and left out gloves, long-sleeve t-shirts and clippers for the next day.

Lise and I woke up at 7 a.m. After some coffee, cereal and a half-hour of watching the rain pass, we went to work and I discovered that the majestic fruit I devoured on ice cream the day before and ate on toast that same day was actually ferocious.

Blackberry vines were tangled up throughout the vineyard. I followed one vine at least six meters along a line of cabernet sauvignon. The blackberry vines tangle themselves around already tangled grapevines, but farmers can’t just rip the vines apart, because they need to be careful of the grapes.

The worst part is the thorns. The thorns on blackberry vines are like nothing I have ever seen/felt. Imagine a cat’s claws clinging to you out of fear and multiply that by a million. The thorns hook into a person’s clothing making it hard to just pull out without somewhat ripping the fabric and if it gets into a person’s skin it’s either staying in or taking a piece of that person out.

Weeding the vineyards at Kancoona Valley Wines means taking on blackberry vine thorns. Photo By Bobbi Lee Hitchon

This happens just by bumping into the vines. Lise and I were just throwing the chopped blackberry vines on the ground behind us. Every time I stepped back, an entire vine would pop up and cling to me, digging into my legs and bum through my jeans. Then when I went to pull the vines off, it would get caught into my arms, where the defense was even weaker than jeans.

This was minor pain compared to when the thorns confronted me straight on. It’s hard to tell the difference between blackberry and grape vines from afar. Once in a while I would grab what I thought was a grape vine to guide it onto the metal holder and find out it was not when after a thick thorn had dug into my skin.

This was just in the vineyards. The bush Lise collected berries from is completely covered by blackberry vines.

That said, I’m gonna go make myself a piece of cheesecake with blackberry sauce to eat while I pick the thorns out of my fingers.