Morning coffee, growing berries and the day ahead

It's another cold and sunny morning here. Below zero temperatures cause school delays and I find myself missing the garden until I remember that I don't have to, I've still got raspberries in the freezer.

The varieties of black raspberries that I grow now seem to freeze much better than the red and gold ones that I used to grow. They are much smaller but firm and hold their shape well. I wish I'd been keeping notes back when I planted them so I can tell you which ones we're using. Of course that wouldn't matter much because the bees cross things and the types of berries you get will change over time.

That has been most noticeable with the strawberries, I'd been growing 3 or 4 different varieties that had traits that I wanted and over the years they've kind of all run together and seem even more amazing that any of the single varieties used to be.

I'm planing to add some alpine strawberries this year and am excited about a variety called Elan which is supposed to have 30 - 50% higher levels of vitamin C and be certified organic seedlings. I'll let you know more about this later in the year.

Well, I'd best get on with my day. I'm getting low on tube acrylics so I'm going to switch from the large, fun painting to the small sunflower with the red background because I've promised that one to someone and I need to be sure I'll be able to finish that first. 

Well, I finished this and sent it on its way before jumping back into the fun one.