Photo Article from the Welsh Hovel: Beneath rampant bindweed, red raspberries emerge

The white flowers on bindweed are stunning but the plant is a pest. I do not know about where you are but in these parts it has been a bumper year for bindweed. It is everywhere. I try to control it, pulling it down as it strangles what I have planted and tossing it on a growing bonfire for November. But it is a losing battle.

Up in the fruit bushes I have planted most of the golden raspberries sit as solitary creatures and have been very productive this year. My red raspberries were among the first things planted and sit in a thicket by the fence. I have battled, not wholly successfully, to keep it nettle free. But almost without me noticing the bindweed has spread like wildfire.

This week I started to pull it down and, hey presto, I have red raspberries too. Slightly smaller but sweeter than their golden cousins they went into Joshua’s birthday summer pudding and are now being frozen for winter puddings as you can see below.