The Raspberry Thieves

Day 6: No one likes to get prickled when they're picking raspberries, not even birds. You'd think that those scaly feet were prickle-proof, but in fact, they're not, and it would appear that my Steller's Jays have come up with a solution to avoid being spiked. Clever corvids that they are, they take careful aim, fly at the berry of choice, picking off three or four drupelets in passing. I watched the process being repeated numerous times, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I finally decided on the former because I already have at least eight pints of raspberries in the freezer for winter, and my avian friends are having a pretty hard time what with dry conditions and heavy smoke. We should get some relief from both by the end of the week, but I'm afraid the raspberries are done for the season.

Fruits Exotic And Familiar

Day 353: The "fruits of my labours" are beginning to roll in. Although this year saw some notable failures (blueberries, particularly), it also brought abundance in some corners. The raspberry crop promises to be one of the best yet (at least, if all those busy little bees have anything to say about it), and the Akebia vine has again responded well to my intervention as a pollinator. Admittedly, Akebia fruits are not everyone's cup of tea. It took me several years to develop a taste for the mildly sweet but otherwise relatively flavourless pulp, and even longer to master the art of slurping it off the numerous large, hard seeds, but now I look forward to the splitting of the pods which signals that the fruit is ripe for picking. This year's crop seems sweeter than that of years past, perhaps because I watered less even though the summer was quite dry. In another corner of the garden, a mere half dozen hardy kiwi berries hang on the vines, hard as little rocks, but the first the vines have produced nevertheless. Will they make it to fully ripe before first frost? The next few weeks will tell.

Bee-have Yourself, Please!

 

Day 327: These days, I give the raspberry patch a wide berth, and with good reason. The honeybees are hard at work, and I am deathly allergic to their stings. My reaction to the stings of wasps is not life-threatening, but nevertheless rather dramatic. I carried an epi-pen for many years and never had occasion to use it because I assiduously avoided confrontations, and in any case, the testing my doctor insisted on performing every few years was so agonizing that if he had told me my only other alternative was to stay indoors, I probably would have complied. Did I mention that wasp stings cause me to swell up like a balloon, and that two weeks later, the six-inch diameter patch of skin surrounding the sting turns black and peels off in thick chunks, leaving burn-like, painful red areas behind?

The raspberries are currently the big draw in the yard, and while I am happy to see honeybees (even introduced species like Apis mellifera here), I cannot feel entirely welcoming. However, once the raspberries begin to ripen, they'll move on, having done their job and leaving me to enjoy the fruits of their labours.

Pollinator At Work

Day 314: This year as last, I will owe a debt of gratitude to the dozens of Anna's Hummingbirds who are busily pollinating my Heritage raspberries. They seem to prefer them to any other plant in the yard, even the Hardy Fuchsias which are one of their favourites. They flit from perches in the contorted filbert and mountain-ash, navigating through the tangle of leaves and vines with ease, reaching even the blossoms in the middle of the raspberry jungle. They are pure joy to watch at their industry, and I will remember their labours long into the winter months when I pull raspberries from my freezer.

No Such Thing

Day 198: I am fond of saying to friends that there is no such thing as "too many raspberries," so to that end, my hard-working botany partner Joe and I cleared a new line of sod today, planted sturdier posts and built a chicken-wire cage around the raspberry plot. We salvaged some strays which had emerged in the driveway gravel and under the contorted filbert and relocated them to the new row. What I am now calling the "Raspberry Cage" should be bambi-proof, blocked on one end by the filbert and two large flower pots at the other, chicken-wire from the tops of 6' posts to the ground on the long sides. Likewise, we removed the old fence from the garden and strung new wire around the "Dreimiller Extension" which now includes gooseberries, currants, a frost-nipped mulberry and yes, more raspberries (bush type). Joe also finished taking out the old hawthorn, allowing the weak end of the grape vine to receive more sun. Gardening is a lot more fun when you're sharing the work. Thanks, Joe! I couldn't have done it without you.

Rain-Washed Raspberries

Day 337: The raspberries were very slow coming on this year, but they're making up for lost time. I haven't quite been able to keep pace with daily production, so I've started putting a few in the freezer with just a dash of sugar sprinkled over them. It's the way my mom put berries by, and whenever I was home from school, sick with a strep throat (something which seemed to happen every month over fall and winter), she'd break out a container of raspberries or strawberries for me to nibble while they were still frozen. For a few years, we lived in a spot with a pie cherry tree in the orchard, and although the fruit nearly always went in pies, I remember a few times when I was sick and allowed to eat the frozen sweet-tart cherries in lieu of berries. Those were good, too! That said, raspberry picking was one of my after-school chores and I hated it. I shared my mother's fear of spiders, and every arching branch seemed to be guarded by an enormous arachnid. Today, I know that these were Araneus diadematus, the Cross Orbweaver, but my mother called them "those damn triangular garden spiders" and the term is still one I use all too frequently when picking raspberries.

Better Late Than Never

Day 318: The Great Bambi War of 2018 has begun. I failed to take preventative steps as soon as I noticed cropped sunflowers and consequently, when I got up this morning, I discovered that the proverbial "low-hanging fruit" on the raspberry vines had been munched by the two culprits I've seen in the yard recently. They recognize me as a threat, so as soon as I step outside with my slingshot, they bound out of range, returning to raid under cover of darkness. A short fence has kept them off the tomatoes, but the raspberries grew tall this year, well beyond the chickenwire cap over the row. I may need to put in taller posts next year, but for now, I've laid window screens up against the vines, propped in place by tomato cages. If nothing else, Bambi is going to get his legs tangled if he tries to pull down the berries.

Bitten By The Gardening Bug

Day 181: Over the last two days, I have planted juniper tams, dug and transplanted a small fig tree, relocated the tomato pot (sunk to its waist in soil), sunk a second pot into which I moved a blueberry bush, relocated two of five horse chestnut trees to their permanent locations, stretched over 100 feet of weed barrier fabric, spread five bags of bark mulch, weeded the raspberries and laid weed barrier around them, and in all, have shovelled what surely must have been at least two 15-yard dump truck loads of dirt (I exaggerate, but my back and arms don't believe it) and busted enough sod that it's a wonder I have any grass left (but I do, and it needs mowing). The catch? I'm probably less than halfway done with the chores I've outlined for the yard and garden this year. Do I have a showplace yard? Not hardly! I love to work the soil, but I'm not much on keeping up appearances. There are no Joneses to keep up with, but if there were, I have the best crop of dandelions in the neighborhood.

Last Fruits

Day 363: My everbearing raspberries ("Heritage") have been a delight this year. Bambi left them pretty much alone except for browsing the fresh tops in mid-August and somewhat limiting my late-season harvest, but there have been plenty for my personal grazing as I made my daily patrols to the mailbox. The jays ignored all but the ripest ones, surprising me with a generosity which does not extend to the grapevine. The plants are not yet mature enough to yield enough for jam, and it's possible that two vines will never produce in sufficient abundance given my poor soil and intermittent husbandry even if I could suppress my taste for a snack of sun-warmed berries plucked in passing.

The blueberries did not fare as well. One bush has disappeared. Whether it was eaten by deer or overwhelmed by grass, I do not know. The second produced only a small handful, all but two or three gone for jay food. I think I'll write blueberries off as a bad idea, but I might be tempted to fill their space with two more raspberry vines.