Our long, slow growing season ensures not only plump, vibrant and glossy berries, but true to type taste and perfume … the whole package! However, beware of the blackberries that line our country lanes. Classified as a noxious weed, they have probably been sprayed.

Raspberries, members of the rose family, had been traditionally grown for processing, but as with many of our berries, the demand is now well and truly for fresh table fruit, due to their exceptional eating qualities. The exception to this are red and black currants, which are grown predominantly under contract for processing.

Raspberries are also being successfully grown in greenhouses. In 2000 Mark Salter, a fourth-generation orchardist, embarked on a new agricultural pursuit with the growing of out-of-season Ichigo strawberries for the Japanese market.

He has now included other varieties grown from runners sourced from Bothwell, in the Southern Highlands. These have proven particularly successful.

The fruit is richly coloured, juicy and beautifully perfumed. They halt production during the summer months, when field-grown strawberries are available. Growing alongside the waist-high strawberry growing trays, are the raspberries.

Each 2m cane flourishes in its own nutrient-fed pot. The canes vacation outside during the winter to set the new fruit.

Pollination is courtesy of the hives housed within the canopy. The strawberry and raspberry blossoms cannot sustain the bees, therefore an apiarist supplements their nutrition.