I was in the garden Saturday morning for the first time in a week and glanced over to the raspberries. Work and other commitments kept me away from the garden. I was surprised to see a lot of red from the distance.

Three hours and 15 pints later, we had a bounty.

With a lot of company over the weekend, we froze only four pints for future use. But eating fresh and sharing is the way to go.

Raspberries are a finicky fruit. The 15 pints we picked over the weekend are more than we had all of last year, when a constant warm fog coincided with the ripening of the raspberries and the fruit got moldy on the vines.

While picking the fruit we try to toss any too-ripe berries away right there. But when we went through them before breakfast the next day, about 10 percent of the berries were too soft or had developed mold. So you have to eat raspberries or freeze them within 24 hours of picking.

Which explains why, when I went to get our first local corn of the season
Sunday at our favorite farm market, they were selling raspberries for $3.75 a half pint.

I haven't done the math, but in value eaten, we did all right over the weekend. And there are lots more berries coming, if the fog will just stay away for a couple of weeks.

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