Backyard Raspberries are the Best!

For about the last week or so, I have been lucky enough to pick a handful a raspberries almost every day from my backyard. The berries couldn't be more delicious! Most days, I end up eating most of the berries before I even get them back to the house! 

I'm loving every berry I've grown but was hoping for a lot more this summer. I think I may have to expand my raspberry patch! Below is what I picked on the  morning of July 20, 2015. What's even cooler is the third picture below, which is a photograph of the new raspberry flowers blooming! These flowers are on the new canes that have started to grow this year. They'll produce a small crop this fall and then a larger crop next spring. Besides the obvious benefits of having the berries in the fall as well, I'm happy to see the flowers because it means my plants are doing well! 

Part of me would love to start my own berry farm one day, or at leas have enough land to grow a year supply of berries! That would be delicious! 

A handful of raspberries, out in my garden. 

Delicious, ripe red heritage raspberries ready to be picked. 

First year raspberry canes flowering for fall crop. 

Finally got my Raspberry Plants!!!

I first pondered the idea if growing raspberries in my backyard last summer, however like all fruit plants, summer is not the time to plant or even find raspberry plants for planting. As fall arrived I kept my eye out for any plants on sale, all I found was some blueberry bushes and a blackberry plant (which I got an amazing deal on!). So as winter came to an end, abet very slowly here in the northeast, I once again began looking for raspberry plants, knowing that early spring is the best time to plant. I checked Lowes first but they only had 2 varieties, neither of which were Heritage variety. These two varieties were developed in Washington state and performed best with a gradual warm up in spring, something that is very rare here in CT! So I held off and decided to check other stores.
So I was ecstatic to see Home Depot had raspberry plants on sale. So I went hoping they would have red heritage variety and they did! So I got two red heritage variety raspberry plants. They had other varieties as well. The fall gold variety caught my eye and when I saw it was an ever bearing variety like the red heritage, I was sold! So I ended up with 2 fall gold raspberry plants as well!
Now I have 4 raspberry plants that should produce a fall crop this year and then a spring and fall crop every year!!! I can't wait to have some but first I have to find a good spot for them!