Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Keeping Count

One of the themes of this blog, and indeed, of our project together, is keeping track of what we're producing. Sometimes it's very little at a time, but even the small things can pack a wallop. For instance, these "Purple Royalty" rasperries, from the first year planting out front, nearly exploded in my mouth. I must keep paying attention to them, and learning all I can about bramble fruits.


Less exciting, probably because it was from a broken off stem, was the first "Fall Gold" berry. Still, tasty.


One of my favorite poems, "After Apple Picking," by Robert Frost, says in part:

"For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired."

I may never feel this way, without a "real" orchard, but I did another pass along the espaliered trees today and pulled extra fruit off. I did some research that seemed to suggest that thinning not only made bigger apples grow, it tended to even out the production, year to year, for the tree, so there's not a boom and bust cycle. That sounds healthier for both of us, but it still hurts, some, to see the results.


We agreed to keep count of something else -- visitors to the garden! I may skew the count with my hives, but since the seeds came for the Great Sunflower Project today, I dutifully followed through.


I put them right by the zinnias.


Cat asked me to put some in her garden, but I may have to assign her a bigger bed. I couldn't find any more room!

7 comments:

Toni said...

Oh those raspberries look sooo good!

I hope you have enough to make jam!

Stefaneener said...

Probably not this year! I have high hopes for the future, and hopefully weeding, pruning, and adequately watering the back yard patch should make a difference this year. I've been enjoying snacking on them as I go - as have the kids!

We're going to have to head out to the u-pick place for Ollalieberries soon. Yum.

kitsapFG said...

Raspberries are my husbands favorites (followed by blueberries and then strawberries!). I just added some new raspberry canes this year but they are young and will not produce anything to speak of this year. Luckily we have a wonderful u-pick berry farm very close to us that we give business to each year - picking gallon pails of raspberries and blueberries that we freeze for year round eating. Most yum!

el said...

Well my dear you do know that unripe apples are the source for pectin for jam-making, right? It's that misty blush on their skin that's the source. Unripe apples figure highly in things like chutney and even regular jams: crabapple jam is one of my favorites. Just do the waste-not thing!

I do admire you though trying to keep track of everything. (I am not so diligent...plus, I figure if I really put my tallies on my blog I would give folks gardening complexes or something. So not me.) And yes brambly things are some of my favorites too but I have never gone the distance and actually purchased bushes...though there is nothing like a fall berry like your Golds. We've got plenty of wild blackberries to keep our arms all scratched up!

Stefaneener said...

I hadn't remembered the pectin thing -- AND I have a recipe for apple pectin! Doh.

I'll remedy that.

Michelle said...

Those look like big raspberries. I stuck one 'Autumn Bliss' raspberry plant in a rather negelected spot in the garden with crummy soil last year. This winter it spread its runners through the bed and now I've got a raspberry bed! Some of the little plants are even blooming. The mama plant has a few berries now. I'm thrilled because the only other things that grew halfway well there were vinca major and some yucky mint. Hopefully the plants will thrive in spite of my ignorance and neglect, so far so good. I'm looking forward to reading more about your berries, that's an area of food growing that I know very little about.

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