Sweet Signs of Summer

The past two days have been a blur of gardening activity.  Finally, the stars aligned with a couple of dry days and nothing urgent on the calendar, so I took advantage of it by cashing in a vacation day to finish up the community garden plots right on the heels of an incredibly productive Sunday around the house and yard.    I felt like it was a "now or never" moment, as the rain in the 10 day forecast was starting to make me think it might be the 4th of July before everything was in place this year.

One of my first accomplishments was doing a little spring cleaning in the raspberry patch.  I spent about an hour cutting out the dead canes, checking for new canes that might need transplanting back into the boundaries of the patch, and tightening up the wire support fence that keeps the canes from hanging on the ground when they're loaded down with berries later in the season.

I had been occasionally looking for signs of the early raspberry crop as I've been stalking the first strawberries, but since everything has been about a month behind schedule this spring, I wasn't really expecting to find any buds yet.  But sure enough, upon the closer inspection there they are, hiding throughout the patch - and even a couple of open blossoms, too!

Maybe summer is closer than it feels!