If I could grow only one edible thing in my garden (in addition to tomatoes and basil of course), it would be raspberries.
Raspberries — pure luxury, packed with antioxidants — can star in everything from raspberry tart (something my daughter calls ‘Nature’s nearly perfect food’) to raspberry streusel muffins (OMG!), to cordial, vinegar, mustard, and of course, jam. Pop a couple in a glass of champagne, mash some onto cream cheese and crackers, sprinkle into spinach salad with avocados, toasted pine nuts and raspberry vinaigrette, well, I could go on. They’re delicate and therefore hard to transport, which is why they cost the moon, but like most cane fruits, they’re pretty easy to grow.
There are two main raspberry types: summer-bearing (floricane), which produces one crop in early June and fall-bearing aka primocanes. The fall-bearing varieties are actually twice-bearing since they can bear fruit on both last year’s canes in mid-June and the new green shoots in fall. I say ‘can,’ because some people mow all canes down at the end of each year, which eliminates the June fruiting on the old canes. I don’t mow mine because I’m greedy and they all seem to do just fine if I eliminate dead canes and clip everything else down to about hip height in late fall so they don’t beat themselves to pieces in winter winds.
I also grow black raspberries, which fruit at the same time as the summer-bearers. The blacks are miserably thorny and rambunctious but make great mousse and add depth of flavor to jam. With both summer and fall-bearing varieties planted you can pick virtually every day for 3-4 weeks in June. There’s a hiatus beginning in early July, then the second wave starts about mid-August on the new canes of the fall-bearers and goes right through to frost provided they get a good inch of rain a week. No problem so far this year, though with all this rain, you need to use picked berries right away or they’ll start to mold.
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Local plantsmen, Art and Tina Carter of Terra Joy (443-480-5417) still have a few Royal Purple, gold, and red raspberry plants you can buy at the farmer’s market. Normally you plant in early spring or after mid-Sept., but with the year we’re having, you can plant them right now and expect them to do well. Barring that, you can mail order. Some mail order houses like Nourse Farms (www.noursefarms.com, 413-665-2658) only ship bare-root canes in spring. Others (Henry Fields, www.henryfields.com, or Gurneys Seed and Nursery, www.gurneys.com) also ship potted plants in fall. Either way works. Raspberries are right now coming into the farmers’ market and at u-pick farms (Lockbriar Farm, 10051 Worton Road, Chestertown, 410-778-9112 is our nearest option). You can check out other u-pick places at https://www.pickyourown.org/MD.htm.
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