Awhi farm : Demon blackberry

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I've been having a prick of a time dealing with Blackberry here. It's pretty much organic barbed wire.
Many of the small gardens have been carved out of the mass of blackberry the threads its self through the property.
I'm regularly pricked and scratched while tending the field and found myself hacking at the garden boundaries with tools to fight back at the spiky loops.

Blackberry as food and security.
Turns out that this introduced plant is useful as they can be eaten, and they can be beaten back to form a hedge that is impervious to man and dog.

The tendrils knit together to form a habitat for small animals.

A third of the plants mass dies during the year, returning nutrients to the soil.

The heart
When clearing the village in preparation for clover seeding, I discovered that the plant establishes clumpy nodules underground. I've come to think of these woody nodes as the heart of the blackberry, and I'm enjoying unearthing these, with the feeling that I'm ripping it's heart out.











Found a shoot... 
...hoping to find heart beneath


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