Jewels of the Summer

I can't think of any fruit I love more than raspberries. I love picking them, despite the possible snags and pokes of the sharp thorns. Not to mention mosquitoes, and other nasty bugs. But I'm determined to get to my FREE fruit when it's in season.

I've been working on keeping a small, wild growth of raspberry canes in our backyard, over the past dozen or more years we've lived here, and it has grown thick and lush.

Armed with bug spray, wearing jeans and a heavy sweatshirt as well as a straw hat, these wise choice in garments will keep you relatively safe from donating blood to either the mosquito or the raspberry bush.

I also take along a pair of clippers my first times out to snip off the new growth canes. These will be the next season's canes. You want to continue to clip them every year, because old ones die out. When you do this you can use gloves, and I recommend taking the clipped cane by the leaf, as you may be speared, if you don't know where to handle the cane.

This morning I managed to get about a cup and a half of sweet berries. Enough to put on anything from ice cream to cereal. I washed them and made sure they were free of grass bits and whatever bugs might be crawling on them--there were no bugs this morning. I put about 3 t. of sugar on them once I get them into a glass container. Right now we should be seeing black bugs, but I think it has been too cool and wet for them. But they tend to come out in July. I'm hopeful that I can get my raspberries before they do come and start to make my berry picking worthless.

Any of you have a berry patch, or some other fruit you like to pick?