As we enter the heart of autum, I reflect on the weird garden we picked from this past season. We didn’t intentionally grow a garden this year, but it grew anyway. In the middle of summer, the tomato vines were growing out of control from our initial planting 2 years ago. This prompted me to look up which vegetables were actual annual vs perennial (survives for longer than 2 years).

1. raspberries, blueberries and other berry bushes
2. asparagus
3. rhubarb
4. kale
5. garlic 
6. radicchio 
7. horseradish
8. globe artichokes
9. lovage
10. watercress

Minh and I were forced to put up the foundation to keep them from overtaking our lawn. I’ve never seen more grape tomatoes! Minh thoroughly enjoyed the task of weeding and tending to the tomatoes. He’s an industrious little fellow. Another perennial plant in our garden is the raspberry bush in the corner. The raspberry bush did quite well this year and it yielded more berries than the year before. Minh was particularly excited about that. We are well into autumn now and the fruits are all picked.

Upon further reading, it looks like with proper care, the raspberry bush should continue to deliver more berries year after year. One thing, we haven’t been doing is pruning. The branches (also called canes) that bear fruit, only live for two summers. In the first year, the new cane is green. It eventually is enveloped in a brown bark and lies dormant in winter. When it warms again, it becomes a “floricane” which yields berries in early to mid summer and dies. I guess I’m going to have to start pruning the dead canes.

In the spot where we leave our rotting pumpkins, it looked like an extensive vine groundwork was laid however, but we didn’t see any pumpkins, I suspect that the buds were eaten by the local squirrels.  Alas, next year we shall be ready for a real harvest….