Sunday, June 27, 2010

Secret Garden

Look at what Thomas found in our back yard today!


Raspberries!  This is our third summer in our house and the first time we noticed a raspberry bush in the back corner of our yard.  Hey, we never claimed to be master gardeners or landscapers (although I often like to claim the title of Captain Obvious, so I guess I'll have to give that up for a while).


on their way to ripeness?

raspberry buds?

We're not really sure what we're going to do about it.  We had been planning on ripping out all the stuff growing in that corner (mostly weeds right now).  Plus I've got mixed feelings about eating berries from a random bush in what is one of the dogs' favorite corners of the yard ifyouknowwhatImean.  Regardless, it was a fun surprise!

2 comments:

  1. Hey Carolyn - Keep that Raspberry Bush ! The require almost no maintenance (and clearly the dogs fertilize it the natural way, which is perfectly ok).

    We have just a few blackberry bushes on our property in the country (soon to be home). This year we've been picking about 2 quarts of delicious plump berries every day. I have gallons in my freeze (not to mention the ones that never made it into the house).

    Raspberries are perennials with biennial canes - in English that means your plant will come back every year. The new canes that grow each year will not put on fruit until the NEXT year and the canes that grew last year will put on fruit and then die off. Word to the wise. Don't prune new growth ! Once a cane has produced berries, let it die off naturally and then remove it.

    You can train the new growth to grow where you want it by cutting off canes at ground level if they pop-up where you don't want them - it'll put more on in other places.

    Consider this a luck omen. Raspberries cost a fortune !

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  2. Oooh, almost no maintenance and not pruning are two things that I am really good at when it comes to plants! I'll definitely keep an eye on it; that would be awesome if we had a decent amount of berries from it (the ones in the pictures are all I saw on it). I'll just have to be sure to wash the berries really well before eating them! Thanks for the info/advice!

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