One More Attempt

As I previously wrote (see July 17, 2008 blog entry), I had raspberry canes growing on the north side of my garage. The raspberry plants came with the house and I allowed the plants to bloom for about three springs/summers, always hoping that the canes would produce fruit. Unfortunately for me, no real fruit ever formed and the most I ever got was the formation of several druplets. (According to Cornell University Dept. of Horticulture, “[t]he raspberry fruit is not a true berry, but rather an aggregate of many individual drupelets. Each drupelet is anatomically analogous to a cherry with a hard endocarpic seed (pyrene) surrounded by a fleshy mesocarp and an outer exocarp.”)

So with a heavy heart this summer, I chopped down all of the raspberry canes. Rather than waste another summer hoping that I will actually get some fruit from the raspberry canes that came with the house, I became realistic: The space is best used to grow something else and I am now turning that site into a flower garden. However, I have not given up on the idea of growing my own raspberries. Thus, I ordered two different raspberry plants, Heritage (which produces red berries from June to August) and Ann (which produces yellow or golden berries from August to October) and have planted the plants on the south side of my home. If the plants do well, I’ll have fruit all throughout summer and well into the fall. I will eventually mulch the top of the garden site and protect the plants in preparation of winter, but hopefully these plants will be alive in the spring and be able to produce fruit.