While checking out the raised bed today and trying (I think in vain) to try to entwine the wild jungle of gourd limbs into the nets that had originally been placed for the peas and beans... I found that we are starting to produce food! There are at least two small zucchinis growing, and something small and round and yellow that may be the start of a pumpkin. Unfortunately, the tangled mess that is the raised bed is going to make it quite difficult to discern which fruit/blossom is from which plant. The black raspberries are also going into overload mode. They're all ripening almost faster than we can pick them. I haven't been weighing or measuring the black raspberries because we tend to eat them as we pick them. Today was different in that there were so many ready to be picked! In years passed, this is about the time the kids lose interest in picking every day and the berries end up going to waste. So I picked every one of them that was ripe and ready to fall off the branch. Yes, we ate some as we picked (#5 and #3 helped), but in the end we still got 8 ounces of berries in one picking! Wow! I will note that previously the berries were always fairly small and sparse for the most part. Last year we tore out all of the brush that had been allowed to grow in the berry patch for the last decade or so, but we did it mid-season. This spring, #2 took a rake and cleaned out the leaves and debris that had accumulated, and Tony and I cut out all of the dead canes. This years harvest is bigger than prior years, and the canes growing this year (that will produce next year) are absolutely huge! I wish we'd have been taking better care of this patch all along. I am impressed that even with a decade of neglect, brush, and a full blown tree growing in the middle and shading everything out... these few plants (I think there are six) have never ceased to produce every year, even if in smaller quantities and with smaller berries. I see Weebly is continuing to have issues with the dates on the blog posts... this one is 7/11/15. I sent them a message. Hopefully they can get this corrected!
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