Raspberries

Anttila's farm is the largest raspberry farm in Satakunta. The surface area allocated for raspberries is almost 13 hectares. At the latter half of July, the ripe raspberries are easy to pick from high bushes.

The host, Tommi Anttila, with pickers in the raspberry area

The farm is the location for many raspberry pickers who have come to pick themselves. The best self-picking days are at the weekends. The farm provides the pickers with freezing boxes, into which the raspberries are placed straight. The farm store sells fresh and ready frozen raspberries all year round.

The cultivated raspberry varieties at Anttila’s farm:

• Ottawa (a large sized spectacular berry)
• Muskoka (a sweet favourite of pickers)
• Mauri’s Sweet (a large sweet variety)
• Novokitaiska (a novelty variety, sweet, equal in size to the Ottawa)
• The yellow raspberry
• Glen Ample (a new large sized variety, which we increased the cultivated area in the summer of 2009)
• Polka (a new winter resistant autumn raspberry)
• Tulameen (a large berry, a novelty variety on trial)
• Veten (a Norwegian large berry variety)
• Tomo (on trial, a large berry, Estonian Variety)

Anttila’s farm cultivates raspberries using the bending method,
whereupon the picking is easier and larger raspberries are attained.

Weather conditions determine whether autumn raspberries can be prepared in Finland. The picking of autumn raspberries is scheduled for September-October, when the traditional raspberry preparation is scheduled for July-August. Autumn raspberries are one year berries, when the traditional raspberry crop requires two years. In 2008, we picked the last autumn raspberries on 24/10/2008.

Farm soft drinks and berry processing

Anttila's farm has developed, together with Satafood Development Centre (www.satafood.net), frozen berries and processed products. We have produced farm soft drinks and juices for the markets, under the Suvenhehku, Satamarja and From Satakunta product marks. Jokingly, our farm is called "the smallest lemonade factory in Finland.

As a new product, our family store provides great tasting raspberry juice