blackberry winter
n.— «It’s only April 9. It’s early and for most crops in the garden things can be replanted.…There may be some delay in when the crop is harvested, and yield may suffer, but freezes at this time of year are not uncommon. In fact we even have a term for it: “blackberry winter.”» —“Arkansas vegetable growers evaluating freeze damage” by Mary F. Hightower Delta Farm Press Apr. 11, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In 1916, a small-town newspaper in Pennsylvania printed a fanciful item about a local gathering with a guest list that included, among others, Miss Ella Vader, Mr. Ray Zor, and other punny names. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
An Arkansas listener is puzzled when a neighbor notes that the weather turned off cold. This expression is part of a long-standing American dialect tradition that includes come off cold, come off hot, or turned off pretty. Such phrases show up...
The phrase was used as the title of Margaret Mead’s memoir, first published in 1972.
there are 3 othwr “winters” that I have heard of. one is dogwood & I do not know the other two. all corespond to planting time & frost warning.
I thought Blackberry Winter was when RIM’s servers went down and you couldn’t get your email anymore 😉
My Grandmother (b. 1870 d. 1955) always spoke of Blackberry Winters when an intense change of season happened out of its normal order in our home of upcountry SC and North GA.