A gambler who plays for fun understands only the brief thrill of mindless chance. A gambler who enters in with knowledge and can acutely calculate the odds and weigh the chance to his favor is a professional. He strives to understand his peril and he continues to risk, resting on his calculation that the odds are within a knowable universe, and that those odds well calculated can be turned to advantage. Growers are gamblers of a sort and this is the season when we are weighing our odds and taking our chances.

Our new bramble looks orderly and sedate. If you walk around it all the plants are bare, and the ground is all garbed in winter’s brown. But, a bramble in winter is the scene of drama and excitement. Out at the end of Row 17 you can find the remnants of a struggle between a grower and a rabbit who took up blackberry plants as part of his diet. I am afraid that rabbit won’t write home to tell about his newfound diet and I better not catch his relatives in there either.

The main show these days is inside these plants. When we look at dormant plants all we see is their unassuming outside, a bare skin studded with tiny buds, all in dull shades of red, brown, and gray. But underneath life is moving towards reproduction, or death is slowly settling into the tissue. Buds once undecided between floral or deciduous growth are making their choice. Buds damaged in one of our cold snaps have already sung their dirge and are slowly drifting into complete non-existence, but buds that are still alive are preparing for their gaudy display when they can unfurl the white petals and produce a blackberry.

Armed with a razor blade, an LED light and a dissection scope, I spend an hour or so every two weeks counting death and life, always hoping, but always aware that even when you know the odds, you have to risk to play the game.

So far, 2016 is looking like a great year, but many days of peril lie before us before winter and spring give way to the season when these plants will finally come into their own.

-George Elder