Review ('08) Berries

Blackberries - Ah, the berries. The blackberries were like a huge beast out of the 1950s when we moved in. Straggly. Brambly. Monstrous. When they finally started to come in I got obsessed with getting a net over them so the birdies wouldn’t chomp our crop. I bought a black nylon net and tried to get the thing over a 6' tall by 9' long blackberry monster. It was impossible. The net would get stuck in the thorns, rip, and tear. Tender berry babies were getting lost. I needed some immediate help. Enter Marina. She took one end of the net and I the other. Up and over, berries safe and sound. We managed to harvest a fair amount of tart berries but robins kept getting under the net to eat the berries and then bounced around frantically trying to escape. We would let them go but not without a good scolding.

After the season was over, I finally read about how to care for berries. I learned that I needed to go out and cut down all the cane that had given us this year’s berries. That thinned the herd a lot! Once I removed that cane and the old cane from days gone by, I was able to see into the garden and the blackberry cane looked beautiful. All that’s needed now is to get some new wire to tie the cane to and then blackberry heaven will be a few months away.

Raspberries - The raspberry was a tiny little bush, just a couple of feet high, but it produced some huge fruit. The fruit was so delicious and every berry tasted like an obscene delicacy. Unfortunately, my exuberant clearing of the blackberry caused me to lose track of where I was and I cut down the raspberry. Chagrin! I’m really, really hoping that it comes back.