The raspberries are in bloom, and if yours have already set small green berries on the lower canes, you're at the edge of the window for harvesting the leaves at their best. Which means this week's first order of business is getting out there with a basket before the plant tips fully into fruit mode and pulls its energy out of the leaves.
Raspberry leaf is one of those herbs that lives quietly at the edge of the vegetable garden, gets stepped over on the way to the berries, and is almost never appreciated for what it is: a mineral-rich, astringent, legitimately well-studied herb with more uses than most people give it credit for. The uterine tonic reputation tends to crowd out everything else, but raspberry leaf is also a digestive herb, an excellent gargle, and one of the best nutritive infusions in the temperate garden — especially when you give it the time it needs to fully give up its minerals.
Alongside the raspberries this week: lemon balm at peak pre-bloom leaf, and red clover blossoms opening in the meadows. Three plants in their prime, all doing something worth paying attention to right now.