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Recently my favorite hardware store has been selling pint boxes filled with large, beautiful black raspberries. I'm a buyer because my wife just loves black raspberries. Personally, after chewing the half million or so seeds each berry contains, I believe that the hardware store is the perfect place to sell raspberries.

In all honesty, I have never grown raspberries. I thought about it but they, especially the black ones, seem to have the reputation of a problem child. The chief issue is virus for which there is no cure. There are some cautions to take. Even then, five to seven years may be a stretch for the productive life of black raspberries.

When selecting plants, buy virus-indexed plants. They are usually grown by tissue culture, which harvests the few cells at the growing tip before they can be infected. Do not get roots from the neighbor's garden because the virus is almost certainly present in them already.

Second, do not plant in the vicinity of wild, fencerow raspberries or in the garden near where tomatoes, eggplants and the like have been grown.

Black raspberries fruit on second year wood. Each plant should be limited to five or six canes and the cane should be removed after it has fruited. Consult the Internet or the Penn State Extension Service for more complete information.

Red raspberries are a different game and quite a bit easier.

Blueberries are also available about this time of the year. The chief problem with blueberries is to get our lime rich, high pH soil to the low pH range blueberries need to thrive. Acid fertilizers, sawdust and sulfur are near the top of most lists to drive pH lower.

Other than that, blueberries are easy. When I grew them commercially they were seldom sprayed, which adds to their desirability.

Pruning in late winter is also rather straightforward. Each plant should have five to seven stems. Each year remove the worst (oldest) stem and let the best, new ones in place.

My strawberry patch was ok this year but did not set any world records. My chief problems were the damp conditions and a row that had become rather wide and thick. I did not spray.

An insecticide about bloom time is helpful especially if you are attempting to grow strawberries near a wooded area. The problem is a clipping insect that over-winters in wooded areas and can cut off a significant number of flowers.

Fungicides can reduce rot, especially in cool, damp springs like we had this year.

In general, my opinion is that spraying is optional with strawberries and our other berry fruits. On the other hand, I am a long way from believing that we can produce tree fruits in this climate without some spraying.

Now that the strawberries are over, the patch should be renovated. My approach starts with finding a high setting on the lawn mower and removing the leaves. I emphasize high enough as to not damage the crowns. Next I will use the rototiller to narrow the rows to eight to 12 inches. That will look like devastation, but spring bearing strawberries are quite vigorous.

Renovation is also the best time to fertilize. Do not fertilize in the spring as that just grows leaves. Now produces buds for next year's fruit. Attention to weeds now and all season is important. I used a light winter mulch of straw or corn fodder when I was growing strawberries commercially.

That's a quick overview of our most popular berries. Buying raspberries has a redeeming value to me. My wife likes them with vanilla pudding. I get a dish of vanilla pudding without the raspberries, of course.

It is enjoyable to watch most flowering gardens as we make the day-by-day march through the growing season. The best ones will offer something new each day.

As I write, the early daylilies are opening with new cultivars joining the parade each day. The stokesia by my walk are showing buds while the 'Rozanne' geraniums had a recent growth spurt and think some of the hosta are in their space.

Within a week I will know whether the viburnums next to my parking lot wall will set berries. This is the first year that both cultivars of that viburnum were big enough to bloom. It takes two cultivars of the same species before a viburnum will set berries. It's not a male and female thing, they just need cross-pollination. Both cultivars will set fruit.

Hopefully, you can say similar things about your garden or are making strides in that direction. With the cooler, damper weather we have been having, this may be an easy year to build on what you have. Adding the blooming perennials or shrubs that your budget will permit on a regular basis all season is an easy way to build a successful garden.

While we glory in the flowers that our garden produces, they are not thinking about us. Their goal is not the flower. The flower just draws insects or catches the wind that causes pollination and produces seed. The plants are thinking about their part in creating the next generation.

Seed production consumes a lot of the plant's energy, which brings us to consider the science behind the common garden practice of deadheading or the removal of spent flowers.

Deadheading signals the plant that it has failed in its effort to produce seed and likely will cause the plant to make another effort, which brings another flower.

Most annuals and many perennials will re-flower if deadheaded. With perennials, the re-bloom seldom matches the first flush but is another round of color nonetheless. Annuals, when deadheaded, act more like that battery bunny in the TV adds.

You will see claims of re-blooming daylilies and bearded iris. To get the re-bloom here, deadheading is essential. 'Stella de Oro', the champion re-blooming daylily, is an exception though.

Deadheading can be time consuming and each gardener must plot his own strategy. I'll bet you can guess mine. One drawback to deadheading is that a few perennials' chief ornamental characteristic is in the seed-head.

Your garden is yours. You get to pick the plants. You get to define the effort you put into it and you get to enjoy the results. What can be better than that?

Picutred above right Geranium 'Rozanne', middle left Stokesia laevis 'Peachie's Pick', below right daylily bed. All photographed at Groff's house.

To the gardener's delight, spring weather lingers as the calendar relentlessly marches into summer. This spring has been easy, except for weeds, if you have been trying to establish new flower or shrub beds or have tried your hand with a new or larger vegetable garden.

In fact, many people continue to make garden additions with Mother Nature providing desired temperatures and most of the water to get plants going. Last week I found myself with a bare bank that will be mowed by something larger than a lawnmower that needed cover.

Fifty pounds of grass seed, a hand spreader, and not much else and my bank is starting to turn green. You would think it was early April by the results.

What I really wanted to talk about today was the vegetable garden. Those things that you normally plant in the spring like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, sweet corn and melons can be planted successfully for another week or two if you want a late summer round with any of these.

Multiple plantings of the above will almost certainly extend your harvest season.

Plants that normally perform best in cooler temperatures like broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach and lettuce should find their way to the garden starting after July 4. Pay a bit of attention to the growing time for best success.

My estimate is that brussel sprouts and cabbage should be in before July 15. Broccoli and cauliflower are usually ok into early August. Spinach and lettuce planted before early August often suffers from the hot weather.

Beans are a great crop for multiple plantings. The one I use matures in something like 55 days, so planting into early August is feasible. I know there are vegetables that I haven't mentioned. Attention to days to maturity and a bit of experimentation on your part may provide delight or at least a learning experience.

The kids laid claim to our vegetable garden this year. With my spring schedule I did not object. They deserve a B+ for their efforts, which are several grades higher than my recent performances.

With the help of the weather they have produced a crop of broccoli and cabbage the likes of which I haven't seen in years. Other cool spring crops like lettuce, spinach and peas have done very well.

I am still waiting to grade their tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, eggplants and squash. That may be more of a challenge since they thrive better with slightly warmer temperatures.

The new strawberry patch we planted last year got average grades. We left the plants get too thick so we got some rot with the damp weather. A bit more fertilizer and some fungicide would have extended the season.

As this growing season marches on it should get rather high grades. My belief is that if the garden is happy on June 30, the weather has few tricks left to play. It won't be a long, hot, dry summer, which is the bane of every garden.

Last week I railed about the excessive watering many people do, even suggesting that most of the plants we lose in our gardens can be traced to too much water. I also promised to suggest a few times when extra water is necessary.

I'll start in the vegetable garden. The vegetable garden is a one-season affair. Happy plants will yield more, although it is well known that the flavor and storage quality is better if the plant grows a little drier.

Several years ago I used two-inch conduit to stake my tomatoes. Occasionally I filled the pipes with water delivering water to the root without wetting the leaves. A watering scheme that does not wet the leaves will lessen disease problems.

Second, if you are a person who thinks a landscape can be born and completed on the same day, you face different watering pressures than those of us who think of it as an evolutionary process. The latter group is happy to take a smaller, less expensive plant and will watch it grow into the landscape we want with lots of moving and additions along the way.

The instant landscape requires larger plants, which have either been pot-grown or dug as ball-and-bale plants. In either case, you probably have gotten more plant than roots. The dug plant has left many roots behind while the large potted plant depended on regular watering for growth and survival.

In either case getting the instant garden growing happily is a higher maintenance issue. You must water more but that is not to say you can't over-water. With transplanted trees it is accepted that they will need careful attention for one year for each inch of diameter in size. That means if you plant a large four-inch tree it will take four years until it is completely established in its new home.

I like the little stuff because it takes hold almost immediately and often catches the big stuff by the time the big stuff is established. The largest tree I planted was a pin oak, which I almost lost in a drought three or four years after planting.

Third, many of the plants that remain evergreen over the winter are shallow rooted and should not enter the frozen ground period dehydrated. Azaleas and rhododendrons top that list. I will set a five-gallon bucket with a few holes in the bottom among the azaleas and rhododendrons if it is very dry as winter approaches.

The others, hollies, boxwoods and conifers have the same needs but to a lesser extent. The difficult part is that all of these plants are generally lower water consumers in the growing season and will be the first of the shrubs to suffer if you have an energetic garden hose.

The last issue is the lawn. Mine comes in two colors, green or brown. So does yours. Mine is brown in the winter and sometimes in the summer if it is hot and dry. The grass doesn't care, as it will quickly turn green with the return of fall showers.

When it is brown I don't have to mow it. You don't mow yours when it is brown either. Think winter. Often I just get to skip a few runs in August. I'm sure you're thinking, "Of course I don't mow in the winter, its too cold." My response is that if mine is brown in August it is probably too hot to mow.

Several days ago I encountered a person gleefully buying plants not for containers, but for her garden. "I love plants but I'm not very good with them," were the first words out of her mouth. My response was encouragement suggesting that with experience she would get better at it.

Next, I took a direct shot at what most often is the problem. I asked if she watered her plants. I got the expected answer, "Every day." My suggestion was, and I have repeated this hundreds of times, "Cut your watering in half and when you see no difference, cut it in half again".

First, the science. The soil is made up of tiny particles of sand, clay or organic matter with tiny spaces between the particles. The tiny spaces between soil particles are filled with either air or water. In the right mix, the plant thrives.

However, if you fill all the spaces between particles with water, the plant's roots have about the same survival chances as you would have trying to hold your breath underwater for several hours or days. You can get in trouble with clay soils quicker than sandy ones because clay has finer particles and offers less space for air.

Without fear of being punished for lying, I will claim that other than watering at planting, I could count the number of times I have watered anything in my flower gardens in the 18 years since we built our house, on the my fingers and toes. The only question would be whether I would need to take my socks off.

My suggestion if that if you see wilt at 7 o'clock it is ok to think about watering. I realize that 7 o'clock comes twice each day. If you see wilt at 2 pm give it a hard think and hopefully resist the urge to get the hose.

The science here is that the plant has ways to conserve moisture by curling its leaves, i.e. wilt. An over-watered plant with poor roots will wilt quicker than a healthy plant. Extra water on that plant at the first signs of wilt will hasten its death.

In a commercial situation, the toughest challenge is to teach people to think more about what really needs water. Just like for many of you it is easy to fall into the belief (trap) that if you have a garden hose, you must use it. I suggest that garden hoses need lots of rest to do their job correctly.

I admit my favorite tirade is about over-watering, but I am totally convinced that the love that comes out the end of a garden hose kills more plants that any neglect we can muster unless we refuse to ever pull a weed.

By next week I promise to calm down and will offer some more civil hints about what and when to water, but first, one last shot. If you have watered your in-ground plants, except at transplanting, this year you are watering too much.

An old friend used to claim that the best crop years on the farm came when we were a wee bit short on rainfall. The same can be said about our ornamental plantings.