Free raspberries.

[tsubasahome]

Last year I succumbed to the spam monster and took Park Seed up on their offer of 9 free raspberry plants with a purchase of $20 or more. Can you imagine how pissed everybody was at me for having the audacity to plant FRUIT in our yard? We have a hill in our backyard(all right, the hill is our backyard) so I planted the nine raspberry plants at the base of the hill. They started to leaf out right away and even produced a couple of raspberries in the fall, even though I planted them in July.

And this year? Well, contrary to the warnings I've heard, the birds have not flown off with my raspberries. However, they are swarming with bumblebees. Bumblebees ALL OVER THE PLACE. It's like a bumblebee block party. Luckily, bumblebees are pretty docile, but I still have to wait until the sun goes down so they clear out. ::laughs:: Also...next year, stake the raspberries. Seriously.

Nobody seems very interested in eating them. They're a cultivar called "Caroline" and apparently Caroline likes to produce tons of raspberries. They're not bad raspberries at all, better than store-bought, but it hasn't been a great year for raspberries. For some reason, all the raspberries are ripening in groups of four. I can't complain...they weren't even supposed to fruit the first year.