Some of the first raspberries to be grown in the UK this year have been produced on an Aberdeenshire farm.
Castleton Farm, based near Laurencekirk, says its raspberries have made an early entrance this year making them among the first to be produced in the UK this season.
Castleton owner, Ross Mitchell, said the raspberries had been produced in new greenhouses built on the farm last year.
“At Castleton Farm, we’ve grown premium quality strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cherries for many years,” said Mr Mitchell.
“However, we want to extend our offering, producing earlier in the season as there is such strong consumer demand for soft fruit grown in the UK. Last autumn, we built two hectares of greenhouses and decided to plant them with raspberries and blackberries.”
He said the extended the growing season on the farm would help reduce the need for imported fruit and cut down on “carbon-intensive food miles”.
Using renewable energy for produce
“Instead of shipping our food halfway across the globe, we are using renewable energy to produce our fruit earlier and for longer,” added Mr Mitchell.
The greenhouses on the farm are heated using a network of biomass boilers and solar systems, which has extended the farm’s fruit harvest to nine months running from March until the first weeks of December.
Mr Mitchell said the varieties of fruit grown for the early harvest at Castleton include Driscoll’s Maravilla and Driscoll’s Victoria blackberries.
He said later in the season blueberries are harvested on the farm later than anywhere else in the northern hemisphere, and Castleton is one of only a few farms in the world picking fresh cherries in September.
Castleton Farm grows just over 410 acres of soft fruit across two sites – Castleton and nearby Inchgray at Fettercairn – and it produces and packs more than 8 million punnets of soft fruit every year through soft fruit growers’ co-operative Berry Gardens.