Tag Archives: raspberries

The Baboon Congress

Raspberries Take Over the World

74 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Edith.

A few years ago, VS had a guest blog post  on her wildly successful straw bale garden. I was inspired by that to try my hand at growing a few vegetables in straw bales this summer.

I have tried growing vegetables before, but have been defeated by monster weeds and various city woes. The book about straw bale gardening that I read assured me that all my previous problems would be nonexistent with straw bale gardening and I would be overwhelmed with a huge vegetable harvest.

I think those are carrots growing sideways
this pepper plant is growing sideways out of the straw bale
the entirety of the green bean harvest
I think there are beets in here somewhere
I can hardly get to the broccoli

In one respect the book was correct. All my previous problems were nonexistent but I ended up with some different problems instead. I had chosen what I thought was a good spot for the bales: a wide strip of land bordered by a fence on one side and the raspberry patch on the other side. From my experience with raspberries, I was pretty sure that the canes would not spread as far as the straw bales until next year and that this was a good way to use what would otherwise be a weed patch, not only keeping the weeds down until the raspberries took over that spot next year, but also providing me with homegrown veggies. I followed the directions for prepping the bales and everything looked like it would work just like the book said it would. I planted some seeds and a few plants and started waiting for the harvest.

Well, the raspberries took one look at the straw bales and declared war. While they don’t seem to have moved much at all in the other direction, they have grown up right next to the straw bales, and hard rains have beaten them down until they are falling down every which way. The straw bales, aided by the heavy rains, took one look at the raspberries and literally fell apart. The seeds I planted did not germinate very well and the plants are growing sideways because what was the top of the bale is now the side. Lovely. I think I’ll just stick to berries and herbs next year.
When have your grandiose plans crashed down around you?

The Baboon Congress

First Fruits

81 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Edith.

On July 8, 2013, I tasted my first raspberry.

Well, not my first raspberry ever. Not even my first raspberry this year – that is, if you count frozen raspberries that you buy in a bag at the grocery store. It was the first raspberry I picked and ate in my backyard this year.

Fresh_raspberries

Last year, 2012, was very hot and very dry. I seemed to spend hours every week moving sprinklers around, trying to get enough moisture to my poor raspberry plants, as well as the herbs, currant and gooseberry bushes, and flowers. It didn’t work. Normally I get a nice summer crop of raspberries and a seemingly unending and unlimited supply of fall raspberries starting in late August or early September and continuing until November, unless there is a severe frost earlier. Last year, not only was I cruelly disappointed by my “crop” of black currants (a couple handfuls at most) and gooseberries (three. yes, three gooseberries), but the always-dependable raspberries did not do what they’ve always done. The summer crop was sort of okay, but the fall crop was small and pitiful. Normally what I put in the freezer lasts quite a few months, but the small amount I had last year was gone before Thanksgiving.

So today when I spied a few red berries, I picked them and popped them in my mouth.

Man! The sweetness! The flavor! Such a sweet and tangy, lush, juicy explosion of everything that makes a raspberry perfect.

There is nothing like a raspberry that you pick and eat while still warm from the sun (although the ones I pick on a nippy morning in late October might be even better). And looking at the amount of raspberries that are still green and hard, I should be enjoying them for a few weeks to come, until they take some time off, and then come back with even more abundance in the fall.

I look forward to the first taste of raspberries all winter and spring and today it was everything I had hoped for.

What’s your favorite fresh-picked food?