Berries

I came home from working on a long, hard gardening job. (Have you ever tried to move TEN YARDS of mulch? It ain't easy!) I checked on the garden goodies and found that I had a whopping 3 black raspberries! WOOHOO!!



I just bought two black raspberry bushes a couple of weeks ago from Bauman's. Only one is going to produce berries this year. I also got two purple raspberry bushes, but they won't produce until next year. Alas, I have nowhere to plant them in my yard, so I have to keep them in pots. One would think that I wouldn't get a lot of berries that way, but the red raspberry bush that I bought and potted a few years ago is bursting all over the place with berries!

The key is putting them into huge pots so that they have room to grow new shoots. New shoots this year will produce berries next year. When the berry-producing branches have finished this year, cut them back to make room for the new. Once they produce berries, they are finished for good.

I almost didn't get these three black raspberries, though. I have this neighbor across the street. Her daughter is four, and is obsessed with Julio (my Shih-tzu). They asked if they could walk over and see the dog, and as I was sitting there, anyway, working on pots and seeds, I said yes.

I don't think the poor woman has any experience with plants, whatsoever. She starts asking me a hundred questions about everything I am planting. When I tell her that the one pot is black raspberries, she reaches out and squeezes one to see if I'm telling the truth! AAARRRGHH!!!

At least she didn't eat it this time! Last year, I had a bunch of tomato plants in pots, that weren't doing quite as well as they are doing this year. In the one pot were yellow pear tomatoes. The darn plant only produced one tomato last year. They literally look like little yellow pears, but are the size of grape tomatoes. She asked me what it was, I told her, she picked it off, popped it in her mouth, then proceeded to talk about how horrible it was and how much she hates tomatoes. SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!

I have so many more stories about this neighbor, but I won't put them here.......

Anyway, now I'm just trying to remember to check the berries daily. I also have four pots of strawberries, and I realized that I've missed several by not checking, so they've rotted. At least they are everbearing and will continue to produce throughout the summer!