Autumn Bliss

"Autumn Bliss" is the name of the type of Raspberry cane I grow. It is a late-fruiting primocane variety, which means it produces fruit on the current year's canes, unlike many types which bear their fruit on the previous year's canes.

I don't know exactly how many plants I have these days, but there is a line of them about 6 or 7 metres long down one side of my garden. I suppose there must be approximately 30 plants.

The first ripe fruits began to appear in late July, but literally only half a dozen every couple of days. It was not until late August that I was able to harvest ripe berries in viable quantities. This batch weighed about 200g. The individual berries of this variety are often very large.

Raspberries generally enjoy moist conditions, and this Summer has been very wet, so I'm hoping for a better than normal crop. We're going well so far.

Raspberries are my favourite fruit, and they don't hang around for long in our house. We don't usually do anything fancy with them. We just eat them as they are, perhaps with some pouring cream, or perhaps mixed in with some other fruit. They go particularly well with mangoes, peaches or nectarines.

The canes will go on fruiting very late into the Autumn. In fact last year I think I still had some fruit in Christmas week. By the time they have finished fruiting most of the leaves will have fallen off and the canes themselves will be looking very tatty, so it is time to cut them down. I do this in two stages: in the late Autumn / early Winter I cut off the top 50% or so. This will prevent them rocking about too much in the wind (and it helps me to see where they are once the garden gets covered in fallen leaves). Then in the late Winter (about the beginning of February) I cut them down to about 5cm above ground level to make room for the new growth. More on this in a month or two. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the delicious fruit!