Raspberries!

Back in October, I planted some raspberries; not really expecting them to do much. But they have gone very well over this summer (we really have been blessed with next-to-perfect berry growing conditions!), and I have been picking berries!

Raspberries are my absolute favourite berry. They are just the right combination of sweet and tart and they taste good on their own or with almost anything else! For example, today I made delicious white chocolate and raspberry muffins, which were magnificent (and extremely dangerous!!!)

Because I didn't tie the raspberry canes, they droop down over the path, which is a bit naughty, but it does mean that the berries are hidden from birds. Next year though, when the new canes come up, I'll make sure I tie them. They have their own bed (my dad's advice, as raspberries like to send out suckers), and I'm just going to let them take over. :)

The mid-summer jungle (and harvest!)

The timing of Christmas is not the best in Australia, because the peak growing (and harvesting) time in the garden takes place when we're all busy having Christmas and New Year's and summer holidays!

So I've been doing all that, but thankfully it's also been a really good summer. We went away recently for a week and a half, which would normally spell disaster for the garden, but the weather has been wet and mild and everything is thriving! 

I'm back to work now too, which means I have to work out how to balance everything (cue the 'Sometimes Gardener' routine!), but for now, I've been pretty happy with the pickings over the last week or so:

30 cobs of delicious sweet corn.

Leeks, zucchinis, eggplants and cucumbers.

...as well as some very good-sized (and delicious!) tomatoes.

I also got some good-sized and yummy table grapes from one of my vines (the rest are still to come),

And a couple of early jalapenos:

Though I learned a valuable lesson when I heaped a chopped chilli onto my taco. They're considerably hotter than the ones I normally eat out of a jar! 

I've also continued to pick an enormous amount of blackberries; around 10 kilos to date! We've eaten them from the vine, frozen them, given them away and made jam, and we still have heaps to pick! A good year for blackberries!

Blackberries!!!

As I've mentioned before, I love to grow berries. Canberra has the perfect climate to do it, with its distinct seasonal changes. This year has been almost perfect: a very cold winter (though I don't actually like that part!) and a warm, wet spring/summer.

As I mentioned in the other post, I've already had a good blueberry and boysenberry harvest (with a few stragglers to come), and I'm excited to see some raspberries (my favourite berry!) blossoming on my new plants, but this summer belongs to the blackberry!

If you're close to my age (41), or perhaps older, you might remember being able to pick blackberries from their brambles in parks, alongside roads or down little country lanes. Of course that was before the authorities realised that they were in fact an invasive weed, and started spraying them. Pretty soon the only place you could get berries was in punnets.

Of course they still have the potential to be an invasive weed, but by golly they're delicious! So I was very happy when my parents gave me a cutting of a thornless variety to plant. I learned my lesson with the boysenberry (or should I say I am still learning it!), and only plant my bramble berries in garden beds that they are allowed to take over (they are ruthless - sending up suckers from beneath the ground as well as runners above!). My blackberry shares a garden bed with two pear trees, but so far they are getting along. I've had a good harvest every year, but this year is amazing! I gave it a pretty savage pruning in late winter, and it's gone crazy! This was one part of the plant at Christmas time:

So far this week, I've picked almost 600 grams of ripe blackberries, and I don't seem to have made a dent! Luckily, berries are easy to freeze and can be used in so many different ways. I also have a lot of volunteers to help me get through them! Anyone that turns up at my house in the next couple of weeks may be offered blackberries!

Some of the plant sticks up over the fence, so I thought it would be nice to share my berries with the neighbourhood.

As we live on a laneway, I just put up a little sign, and they help themselves.

Hopefully it brings back some memories for them, of summer days spent with purple fingers and the delicious taste of blackberries on the tongue!