Raspberries in Winter...

Right now, there are fresh raspberries growing in Michigan, even as the wind chill drops the temp to negative 14 and the ground is covered in snow. On February 10, The Detroit Free Press and Kalamazoo Gazette reported on local farmer, Andrew Kieboom, whose changed raspberry growing for the better. Instead of ending his season in August, he switches it up and harvests his raspberries through mid-January. Each year for the last three years, Kieboom harvested as much as 1,500 pounds of raspberries from his 10,000 square feet of plants, and is the only person in Michigan growing raspberries in winter, so far.To get his plants to bloom in winter, Kieboom “tricks the raspberries” he told the Free Press. He keeps them cold during the summer, simulating winter, so that when they’re put into a greenhouse in winter, they’re ready to bloom. More than extending the season, Kieboom is upending it. On grocery store shelves, a pint of fresh raspberries from Kieboom is $3.50 for a half-pint, $1 more than imported raspberries from Latin America. There’s a local market for people who want his raspberries, for their fresh taste or in the interest of keeping food local and if more farmers started growing raspberries in the off-season there’s no doubt that more people would pay extra to taste summer when it’s snowing. Raspberries are healthy business, in 2005, according to the U.S. Raspberry Industry California produced 72 million pounds of raspberries, Washington produced 68.9 million pounds, and everyone else produced 7.7 million pounds. If we could add some winter raspberry production to that, it would make the year that much sweeter. What to do with your winter raspberries? Razzle Dazzle Recipes has recipes for raspberry marshmallow cake, raspberry truffle cream pie, and more. Just Berry Recipes has 13 pages of raspberry recipes, from black raspberry flan to raspberry sweet tea.

Art by Stephanie Cleaver.