More precious than gold or rubies

These were delicious!

More precious to me than gold or rubies, at least for the moment, are the first raspberries from my garden.

I planted these raspberry brambles in the spring of 2011 and didn’t expect, or get, any raspberries that first year because raspberries fruit on two year old canes. This spring I was hopeful that I would pick my first crop by mid summer.

And then the drought struck and dashed my hopes.

The raspberry brambles melted in the heat and watering merely kept them alive.  How could I even hope for them to produce fruit under such conditions?

(Even though, by the way, I believe that many plants produce their best flowers under stress. Bring on the stress and the plant thinks it is dying and pops out flowers like crazy to produce seed. The same is true of us people.  Put us under a little stress and watch us produce whatever it is that is going to alleviate that stress.  For both plants and people, there is, of course, a limit to the amount of stress we can endure before we croak under the weight of the stress, but I digress…)

The rain returned in August, and both varieties of raspberries, ‘Anne’, the yellow ones, and ‘Caroline’, the red ones, perked up, bloomed and fruited.  I was surprised but should have guessed they would do this. Both varieties produce two crops a year, one in June/July, the other in September, according to the source I purchased them from.

From the looks of the brambles, I should be able to pick a couple more good handfuls of gold and rubies, I mean raspberries, before we get more frost.