Canby Raspberry Vines

Friends, the news is huge. We’re on the edge on of our garden seats, trying not bear too much excitement because unless you’re in Costal Southern California, you would never understand. Yes, the photographs are proof….we can finally grow raspberries.

Unless you’re a huge lover of raspberries, or a Southern California gardener who has struggled with growing berries of any kind, this might be a *yawn* post for you. Please, bear with us with our little celebratory dance because we’ve been dreaming of growing successful fruiting raspberries for a very long time. Every time we visit Oregon and Washington where berries grow like wild weeds, we yearn to be so lucky as to have just one plant to bear some sweet, edible fruit.

Last Summer we did a road trip up through California, Oregon and Washington State. During our entire drive up Oregon and Washington, huge bushes of raspberries and blackberries adorned the highway like weeds-gone-wild. We’d make occasional stops along the road and indulge in some of the wild berries. With each bite, our jealousy grew even more over how abundant these berries were for all the local folks. These people have it good!

Eating fresh, sweet berries falling off the vine are one of life’s simple pleasures. And now we can finally enjoy them in our own backyard. Geek out!

A few months ago we stumbled on a variety of raspberries at our local nursery called Canby Red Raspberries. The tag on the plant said that the raspberries were thornless, abundant and sweet. And most importantly, it would grow well in our region. Previously, we’ve written about finally finding a variety of blueberries that don’t require a long amount of chill hours. So with high hopes, we were excited that these variety of raspberries would do equally well.

Often times, berries thrive in cool, moist climates and our warm, dry weather isn’t ideal to get berries to fruit well. But this variety of Canby Red certainly proved to be fruitful after only 2 months in the ground. For the past few weeks we’ve been harvesting handfuls of super sweet raspberries with a delicate, floral note.

These are the best raspberries we’ve ever tasted. They were so addicting, that we returned to the nursery and got a second plant to grow.

Gardening does that to you. The feeling of love and appreciation for growing food is extremely gratifying because all the hard work to nurture something that gives back such a special gift can never be matched.

Thanks for geeking out with us on this occasion. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ll head back to the garden and check on our latest planting….blackberries! That’ll be a later post. Finger crossed, the blackberry bush will be equally generous.

-diane

Sierra “the veggie hater” wanted a taste… 

she wasn’t sure if she could trust a raspberry…. 

just a little nibble….

a slow nibble…. 

oh wait…. it’s a fruit… I’ll try it. Carefully.

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