My Garden Champions 2013

I've been gardening on my own for only 4 years so I'm still a beginner in many aspects. Every year I try several new plants and "retire" a few (nice euphemism for ripping them out). Every year there are plants which behave in some unexpected ways, plants which really stand out; let me call them champions.

Yield champion: fall raspberries.


My Caroline raspberries were on their 3rd year. They occupy 5x4 feet piece of land and bear like crazy. We kept eating, making jams, even inviting friends to graze over and still could not keep up with the harvest. I thought I could eat raspberries in unlimited quantities but what used to eventually stop me is their sourness. Maybe the berries didn't have enough sun in October.

Carolines are "two-way" raspberries; they are primocane so plants can either be mowed in fall to bear the following fall or left overwinter to have crop the following summer.
I left some of the canes standing to get crop earlier in 2014. We'll see how it goes: tonight forecast is -25C, hope they will survive.