Let’s start with a confession…

I neglected the raspberries. Not just a little bit – I planted them in pots along the back fence then abandoned them.

No staking, trellising, fertilising, weeding or attention. I picked a couple of berries late last season, but they didn’t do much in their first season. I’ve been meaning to construct a trellis for them to grow on, but getting the materials home from the hardware store and actually constructing the thing seems quite difficult. You’d thing I’d be able to manage tidying them up and fertilising though,  wouldn’t you?

Well no.

This is the disgrace that is my back yard. The raspberry plants are in the pots along the back fence. The garden in front was holding my capsicums and chillies protected over winter, but they’ve come out of their pots into the front garden bed and I’ve just left the pots sitting there. Imagine an indoor version of this scene and you’ve pretty much got my kitchen.

Each of the pots even seems to have its own unique affliction. The first one has been overtaken with ivy.

And the second with a different weed.

The third seems to be missing from its pot entirely (I blame the chickens for that one), and the next is most definitely a chicken victim.

But when I brought myself to actually examine the plants, they actually look like they are still alive. And not necessarily in the places I was expecting…

There’s a completely new plant in the middle of the garden bed! And when I looked down between the pots, there was another more advanced cane, popping directly out of the ground!

My raspberries have escaped!

How that happened, I really don’t know. The pots seemed pretty sturdy, and the garden bed that they have popped up in is completely lined along the bottom with concrete.

So I guess I’m going to have to construct that trellice, and soon. Unless I want the triffids all over our back yard.