The Muir Fruits Story

Daina was brought up within a berry loving family and this has been passed down onto our family. Daina’s parents grew various types of berries in their garden, and love to pick brambles.

Charlie also has a love of the outdoors. Rarely indoors as a child he loves the freedom and healthy lifestyle of working outside.

Our family LOVE berries. From an early age our children have chosen berries over sweets. Foraging for berries is one of our favourite things to do. We are well aware of the health benefits of berries and therefore allow our children to eat their fill of them!

We were blessed in 2017 to acquire our small farm in Aberdeenshire, Kinellar; 19 acres, 17 of which was grass at the time. Year one was building our house and planning our future on the farm. Year two inevitably Daina had the idea to grow berries on the farm.

Having visited a number of farmers in Latvia and Estonia, we became aware of a number of berry plants that aren’t currently grown commercially in the UK. 

We applied for the Scottish Government supported young farmers start up grant to help fund setting up the berry farm. We were successful in obtaining the funding and started working on plans to get started.

Firstly Daina started her agricultural diploma which focuses on fruit farming. This has given us the knowledge needed to get the plants started in the best conditions possible and make sure we can get the best out of them.

Year 3 we took the delivery of our first plants. 1650 plants in total! This year was an experiment - to find out what will grow and establish well on the farm. We planted lingonberries, cranberries, saskatoons, honeyberries, blueberries. The plants have been planted into raised beds that we prepared in year 2. Planting was a family task, all the children were involved with some help from our neighbours and friends.

A water mains burst washed away 1/3 of our raised beds before we were able to plant. This area was not salvageable, so we planted apple trees here and have established a small apple orchard. 

The winners of our trial were the saskatoons and the honeyberries. We therefore committed to continuing to plant these in subsequent plots. The apple trees have stayed and are establishing as a small orchard.

We have since planted 1650 plants a year for three years. Our honeyberries have been supplied to  https://www.forestfarmdairy.co.uk and made into delicious sorbet. We have also been working with the SRUC and have developed some yummy products based on the saskatoons which will be launched soon. Finally we are working in collaboration with The Rowett Institute of Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen researching the health properties of the Saskatoon berries.

In 2023 we decided to launch a pick your own, this is free of charge but we ask for pickers to donate to one of our two chosen charities - International Justice Mission who aim to abolish slavery internationally and the Lighthouse Support Centre in Tillydrone, Aberdeen who aspire to offer holistic and inclusive services to the whole community of Tillydrone.