LATE AUTUMN PICKING OF POLKA RASPBERRY AND PERPETUAL STRAWBERRIES

I cannot believe that I am still getting handfuls of Polka raspberries and juicy perpetual strawberries so late in the season.  Will it last?  I doubt it, there's an almighty wind blowing outside, shaking the fences and the trees.  I don't know how the seed feeders are still on their hooks.  It keeps sunshining, intermittently, with lashings of rain inbetween.  I am so glad that I trained my raspberry canes cordon-style—more horizontally than vertically—in order to try and keep some fruit on them when the wind does this.  There are literally hundreds of tiny green raspberries still in the process of maturing.  The strawberries, in the freestanding trough and containers, are dripping with half-ripened fruit.  I keep picking them a little too early to try and get to them before the slugs and the weather.  As for the Polka raspberries, I have never, not once in all the few years that I have grown them, seen an insect on them other than pollinators and, so far, touch wood, they have never shown a sign of mould.  Perhaps I am in danger of speaking too soon.





Polka raspberries and perpetual strawberries - October 2014

Polka raspberry flowers ready to make fruit - October 2014 - Macro photograph