Raspberries

The last few days have been strange......

The weather has alternated between sun, wild winds and rain, making it difficult to get outside and do anything much.

I finally decided that the raspberries needed pruning and tying up more than I needed to be inside out of the wind, they are starting to sprout, and the thought of trying to pick raspberries through twice as many canes as normal spurred me on.

These are not your average thorned raspberries, they could give loganberries a run for their money, I have resorted to picking in cotton gloves on occasion, and I don't do any sort of pruning or moving of canes without leather gloves.

The canes came from family friends, who had been given some prize-winning canes from an old lady when she sold her house years ago. So when our friends down-sized we were lucky enough to be given some of the canes that they were digging up. For around six months they sat dormant in 5L icecream containers along the driveway of our rental house, and when we moved into our first home (aka the bank's and our home), the raspberries were among the first things we planted (priorities). The raspberries themselves are beautiful things, you have to wait till they are almost purple for the full flavour and sweetness to be present, because if you pick them when dark red like most other types they will be bland and sour.

The canes run along the north facing side of the house, so they get a lot of summer sun, and the brick behind them means that they often fruit in autumn as well as summer. The leaves rarely fall till June, leaving me only a couple of months to get organised and tidy them up before they start to leaf again, obviously I am behind schedule this year.

Last year I trimmed the canes to the height of the top supporting wire and tied them on with jute string, unfortunately that didn't work too well in the exposed conditions, and the old canes were all leaning over and tangled with the new, and quite a few of them were a couple of metres long. I read somewere a while ago that twisting the canes along the wire was a good option for keeping the canes neat, and considering how long it took, and how scratched I got tying them with the ill fated string I figured that this could be a better idea.

So after spending a couple of hours here and there between the wind and rain they are done, and looking pretty nice too (although the light hasn't been cooperative the last couple of days so I don't think the picture does them justice), almost like a woven wicker basket. I can't wait to see them with more leaves (and of course fruit).

My grandmother called just after I had finished the last few canes, and on hearing that I have raspberries, has placed an order with me for some around christmas time. Let's just hope that noone else hears about them being nice, purple, rich raspberry tasty things because then they'll all want some.....