I'VE LOST CONTROL

I have lost control ... of my garden that is.  I still have a garden in the sense that there is a plot of ground back behind the garage that is tilled and planted with my perennials: rhubarb, horseradish and green onions for next spring.  There also are the remains of this year's tomato and pepper plants.  Frost the last couple of nights took care of them.

 
And then there are the raspberries.  The raspberry canes took over the garden this summer during my absence.

We had a lot of rain this summer and raspberries apparently love rain.  Well, I guess most plants love rain.  There are certainly some vigorous weeds growing in the garden alongside, actually in and among, the raspberry canes.  Be that as it may, the raspberry canes took off like raspberries on steroids this summer and I now have raspberry canes that reach 10-12 feet across the garden with their tips taking root in the nearby compost pile.

I have raspberry canes sprouting anywhere there is a tiny spot of open ground.  I cover areas of the garden with black plastic that is not planted with something.  Otherwise the weeds will grow out of control during the summer when I am gone and not here to weed regularly.  The steroidal raspberry canes found every little hole in the black plastic, inserted a tip and started another plant.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love raspberries.  I love fresh raspberries on my morning cereal, when they are in season, and I love frozen raspberries on my cereal the rest of the year.  I love raspberry pie.  I love raspberries in just about anything -- except in my face!  In-your-face raspberries, the kind that say, "This is my garden, I'm taking over." offend me.

They must go.

Of course, that is easier said than done.  And I have the scratches to prove it.

I tackled the offending raspberry plants yesterday with a measly pair of pruning shears.  I would have been better advised to go in with a chain saw or, perhaps, a flame thrower.  They do not like being cut.  They do not like being pruned.  They do not like being pulled up by the roots.  And they do not like me being in control of the garden, I learned.

But I am in control!

My spring onions are beat all to hell because some of the new raspberry shoots had taken root there.  My horseradish plants looks like a horse that was ridden hard and put away wet because they got trampled during the battle.  I am scratched from shoulder to fingertip and weak from loss of blood, but, by god I am again in control of the garden.