We’ve been picking black raspberries this week, and they are pretty wonderful. We have a good haul of berries so far, and I have a series of small scratches on my arms to show for my work.
On Wednesday, I made a black raspberry pie in our new oven. (Just one pie. Jim estimates that I could bake 16 pies concurrently in the wonderful new oven. The challenge of having 16 pies ready to put into the oven at the same time is not one I’ve conquered yet!) The crust got just a tad scorched when I was recruited to help stake up and cage up wayward tomato plants; some serious tomato wrangling was necessary and two sets of hands worked together to manage the cages and vines. But the pie is still delicious!
One unfortunate issue in the timing of the ripening of the black raspberries this year is that the first sizable generation of mosquitoes seems to have matured at the same time. We have all been subjected to steady assaults while out working in the berry patch. I’ve gotten more bites so far this year than in the last couple of years combined. Slapping at arms and legs while picking berries takes away a bit of the fun, I have to say. I’m tempted to experiment with bug spray, which I generally avoid using.
We probably have at most a week of berry picking left. I’m anticipating another pie and hopefully a black raspberry daiquiri. We also harvested the black currants and, for the first time, we have enough to make a pot of jam.
