You know those stories about people sneaking on to their neighbors’ porches in the middle of the night with bags of zucchini from their garden that they leave there? Well, in Alaska, those of us with raspberries growing in our back yard are tempted to do the same thing.
I was unaware of the ability of raspberries to pretty much take over every part of my yard in such a short time. When I moved here, I moved from Utqiagvik where no raspberries grow. My childhood was spent in a city where Mr. Letizia’s fig tree – which put out about three figs annually – was considered the closest we had to a garden experience. So growing things was simply not in my vocabulary.
Now I have gone from some raspberries growing along the side of my house to a situation where I need to use a scythe to get through the bushes to pick raspberries. I feel like a modern day Jungle Jim, trying to find my way out of the jungle without waking the lions.
So if any of you hear a bump on your porch in the middle of the night, just ignore it. And that bag of raspberries that you will find on your porch the next morning has nothing to do with me. Nothing at all.
OK, only 40 bags of raspberries left to distribute…