Four Raspberries

Three in the picture, one in my mouth…

I grew these!

So, it took three long years of patience.  But, now the raspberry sprouts are really filling in nicely.  We’ll be fighting the squirrels and birds for one heaping pint of raspberries.  These were a little small, but very sweet and warm from the sun.  Raspberries have never tasted so good.

What’s eating my raspberries?  Once the berries show even a hint of red, they get eaten.  Sadly, we don’t mean by us.  On the bright side, every day we see a new sprout pop out of the ground.  We’re thrilled the vines are so healthy this year!  It’s about time.

As you can imagine with all of this nonstop rain, the dampness will cause even more berries to rot.  So, out of the heaping pint or two we were hoping to see ripen on the vines, we’re guessing a third or less of that will become ripe berries.

Two types of mint, sage, Greek oregano, scallions, parsley, basil (self-sprouted), and dill (self-sprouted) manage to thrive with zero effort on my part.  We haven’t even set up the watering systems this year.  A broken fountain took up a couple hours last week.  But, we’re pretty sure it’s given up its fight for life.  We’ll try to repurpose and relocate the fountain behind the wall. ( if we don’t break it in the relocation process)  It should add height and interest.  And, it’ll motivate us to spend some time adding more life into the tree-lined hill.

Some of those flower boxes are sprouting berry vines, too.  We’re not sure which type of berry.  So, we may or may not replant those in the bare spots at the end of the season.  Fountain on the far left? Maybe?  We’ll see.

My Recipe Of The Week?

Place warm, sun-ripened berry on your tongue and let it melt.

Enjoy.

Nothing beats picking berries in your own back yard.