Finally, after 2 weeks of perfect sunny dry weather, it's raining. I love the sun. I love heat...a dry sunny day is near perfection to me. I love being outside all day and working, biking and hiking with the dog. After 2 weeks though, part of the day is eaten up by watering the garden. We have lots of flowers and ornamental plants, but the biggest water usage is our vegetable garden. We grow many of the vegetables we eat.
Lots of it goes into the freezer and into the attic for the winter. We just finished last years potatoes and just this week, the last package of frozen raspberries.
I love raspberries. I always dreamed of being able to grow enough. Though, what is your definition of enough? Mine, in regard to raspberries, is to be able to eat them every day in one form or another. Fresh, in confiture, in desserts...the fresh part lasts about a month and the month seems to be starting just about now. I think I will pick the first bowl of ripe berries tomorrow, then all hell breaks loose.
The raspberries do not usually require watering but a year with a lot of rain gives
big juicy berries, but a year with little rain compensates with smaller but more intensely flavored berries.I started with about 20 plants which a friend had thinned from his patch back in 2000.
I moved in 2003 and a big pot of plants came with me from my old garden. Each year I have to thin them and I give plants to my friends and increase my lines of plants.
I have a regular routine for their cultivation. After they finish fruiting , at the beginning of July, I cut the old wood out and select the three healthiest new canes.
I cut them to three different lengths and tie them to the wires.
The rest of the season, when I cut the lawn, the clippings go between the rows and around the plants.
In the fall, I turn over the clippings with a fork and take out all the new shoots and roots I don't want. The late fall is the best time to plant them as well.
All winter, I put the ashes from the fireplace around the plants and between the rows.
Then in the spring, I turn it over lightly with a fork. This is a good thing to do because when you fork the earth in the spring and late winter, any pests hibernating in the ground are turned up and the birds can see them a lot better than you can!
In March, I sprinkle soft fruit fertilizer on the ground...soon the new wood begins to sprout leaves and sends out branches and in June...all hell breaks loose!
Stay tuned for a new batch of raspberry recipes from the La Sechere Dessert Research Facility!
2 comments:
Man, am I jealous. It sounds so wonderful. Thanks for the description.
The price for a half-pint [who can imagine such a small amount?] of raspberries is $2 here in Ohio. Can you imagine that profit margin?
With all of the rows you have, you could be living the 'good life' here in my neck of the woods.
About 15 years before my mother died, I brought her some raspberry plants that were given to me. She, a widow, tended them well, and was rewarded by a small bowl each morning during the late spring and mid-summer months.
When she was 90, she still managed to walk out to the patch and pull a few off while sitting on a stool.
Clearly, the raspberry was quite a delicacy to her and she passed that same love to her eldest son.
Again, many thanks for sharing with me your idyllic new lifestyle.
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