Autumn raspberries and the Puca

be still my growling stomach

No-body looked put out when Eileen asked them to pick raspberries last week. The truth is they had been eyeing them up every week, dying for an excuse to try them out! Last year Eileen lost huge amounts of fruit to days of rain but this year she  has a huge harvest and as a result is busy making pots and pots of her delicious raspberry jam. A lot of times people don't bother with Autumn raspberries but really they are one of the best crops of the year. They begin to fruit at a time when most other soft fruit has finished (blueberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, strawberries etc) and can continue on very successfully right up into November if the conditions are right.

What a tough job! Chrissy, Catherine & Kathleen

Cold or frost don't seem to stop or ruin them and whatever terrorising the Puca does to the wild blackberries in the ditch dosen't seem to effect the raspberries at all.Maybe the Puca has no interest in raspberries? If you have never heard of the Puca we were told as children not to pick blackberries after Halloween because the Puca (pronounced pooka, a malevolent fairy spirit that can shape shift into anything but is most often a horse) would spit on them. I know! I know! it sounds like something straight out of Fr. Ted!! Actually I remembered being threatened with the Puca as a child if I stayed out after dark close to Halloween and in all the old myths and legends children were especially in danger of being kidnapped by bad faries at Halloween!!If I'd been kidnapped I would have been taken to an island in the west, have basked in sunshine, eaten delicious food and never grown old,-lucky escape eh?

Quick! stop chewing! Greg and Pat caught red handed!

So the lads ended up with a very nice job on a sunny afternoon last Tuesday, and as is the case with most things edible they managed to eat as many as they picked. Eileen explained to them that over-ripe fruit is no good for jam and showed them raspberries at the perfect stage for jam making to be picked. What to do with all those over-ripe fruit? hmm? eat them of course. So the lads returned to the house laden down with bowls full of raspberries and wearing the evidence of a fine feast as well.

"Autumn Bliss" is the variety Eileen grows for jam making but there are lots more to choose from. We are heading into bare root season when you can buy bundles of raspberries quite cheaply to plant for next summer but if you know someone who has them you can probably get them for free. They are the type of plants that like to invade the garden by means of their intrepid root systems so be warned if you put them in -you will always be giving some rogue ones away.

the foragers breakfast, our own raspberries and hazelnuts

My own Autumn raspberries are not great this year, highly disappointing after a great harvest last year. The summer ones grew and fruited well on the heavy clay soil, as did logan berries and all the other hybrid cane fruit but I feel that I must add some manures or compost to this area to really get the crop going for next year.