Jaci Hicken, our seasoned journalist and trained chef, shares her wealth of knowledge on growing, cooking and preserving homegrown produce. In this edition, Jaci prepares for the onslaught of summer raspberries.
A little while ago, my other half celebrated his half-century, and as a gift, a friend gave him eight raspberry canes.
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This was early in our gardening journey, and we built our first raised garden bed specifically for berries.
I had visions of a flourishing berry patch, with feature roses in the corners, a neat row of raspberries, a patch of yellow raspberries down one end and blackberries on the other and a row of each colour of currants, red, white and black.
Oh, how wrong that was.
Raspberries can take over.
A four-metre-wide, 12-metre-long garden bed was built, with a path down the middle, which was filled with clean topsoil topped with mushroom compost and mulch.
Jaci can grow raspberries.
Photo by
Jaci Hicken
We planted the raspberry canes by simply sticking them into the soil, which we did in May.
They all took to their assigned spots.
Once established, raspberries tend to travel by themselves out of their garden beds.
To prevent them from escaping their garden bed, it is lined with hard plastic, which also helps retain moisture in the warmer months.
If one pops up in the lawn nearby, we just mow over it or pull them out of the next-door raised garden bed, where the asparagus lives.
Raspberries come in two seasonal varieties: raspberries that fruit on first-year canes late summer into autumn, and raspberries that fruit on second-year canes late in the spring, through to early summer.
All the raspberry canes we were given were second-year fruiting canes.
With second-year fruiting canes, you prune them to the ground once they have fruited, died back, and their leaves have become dry, allowing the new growth from this summer to fruit next summer, which we do around Easter each year.
With raspberries that fruit on first-year canes, once they have fruited, you cut them off at ground level to re-grow for next year’s fruit.
The raspberry patch is weeded and mulched, then left to blossom and fruit in the spring.
After the canes have blossomed, before the fruit is fully formed and red, a bird net is placed over the patch, resulting in up to 40kg of fruit from the second week of November to the first week of December, most of which is frozen for later use.
Well, the middle of November is fast approaching and there are still five boxes, about 15kg of raspberries in the freezer from last year, which need to be used up.
So far this year, raspberries have been made into jam, vinegars, cordials and turned into my signature cake, a raspberry cream torte.
Does anyone have any ideas what can be cooked with the frozen raspberries, before we harvest for 2025?
If you have any ideas on what Jaci can do with frozen raspberries, share them with her at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au.
