doodledee

Hey check it out, it's almost an entire half a pint of homegrown raspberries. Woo hoo. And there are tons more of them out back in the garden. Woo hoo again. Get me some ice cream or something, I'm ready to eat.

Those of you keeping score at home may recognize the significance of such a bountiful harvest, as these would be berries picked from plants that Libby planted way back when we first cleared space for our backyard garden way back when we first got a backyard to clear space in. For those of you who don't remember that particular time in doodlehistory, I'll just put it this way: these are berries from plants purchased from a pre-IPO Garden.com. Yes, that Garden.com. If I remember correctly we had a coupon and we ended up getting 12 live plants shipped overnight for like $8. 1999 ruled.

The story goes that Libby planted her raspberries in our garden and then a couple of days later I planted like 6 huge tomato plants and a ton of beans and zucchini and herbs and stuff and more or less hogged all the sunlight and water and nutrients and - go figure - all but like 3 of her plants died after that first summer. That's what we in the business like to call a "whoops". At the time I had also purchased a ton of lumber and wire and stuff so that I could build this killer industrial strength raspberry trellis thing that Libby had found blueprints for on the internet. ("Mmm... Ambitious this one is." - Yoda, that afternoon). Go figure, all that crap is still up in the rafters of my garage, waiting to be built. Whoops again.

But now I don't garden as much as I used to - mostly because I've finally come to terms with my super shady backyard - and Libby and her raspberries have somehow managed to claw their way into dominance. I'd estimate they've taken over a good half of the garden, and are actually producing quite a bit of fruit. Not enough to jam or jelly or anything, but certainly enough to enjoy as a snack, and certainly way more than they've produced any other year. Who knew?

Berrylicious indeed.