I thought I would share a short series of pics I took today of wet harvesting of a cranberry bog in my area. I didn't know which forum was the best one to post these, though we do have a lot of cranberry growers here in the the northeast. Anyhow, if anyone else has pics of cranberry harvesting, wet or dry, or other cranberry bog related pics, please feel free to share them.
Karen
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Cranberries floating on the water.
And last in this series: loading the cranberries into a truck. Hopefully I will get a chance to get more pics of cranberry harvesting before the season is done.
Neat! But I must say ...that job doesn't look like very much fun! lol
This message was edited Sep 28, 2008 12:57 PM
Thanks for posting those pics, Karen. Years ago when my family would vacation on the Cape, we'd take the kids to North Carver, MA where there was a place called Edaville Railroad. It was an interesting visit and one of the highlights was to take the train through the operating cranberry bogs. We had never been there during the harvest and seeing the pictures brought back a lot of memories. Edaville is closed now, but I think the bogs still operate.
This means Thanksgiving will be early HUH?
Thanks, Karen! When I wrote my article about cranberries last fall, I was horrified to find that MA is NOT the top producer of cranberries anymore!
Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
I have seen the bogs, but only before or after harvest. It is nice to see it in action.
Reminds me of the two guys in the cranberry commercials. lol
Sounds like a very wet job!!!!
somewhere along Edaville Railroad is the new location for the Roseman Nursery... if it was not raining as bad as it was yesterday I would have stopped there...
Cranberries are pretty common here in south jersey.... I still haven't been to one of the farms... but I saw the dirty jobs episode
Mamasita,
Edaville Railroad is still open. I am not sure of the schedule, but you can find it here:
www.edaville.com
Tom
Oh, and it's actually located in SOUTH Carver. :-)
My wife has a number of cranberry pictures somewhere online I will try to locate them and post the info.
My wife's family has a number of bogs and are third generation cranberry growers, so if you have ??? I will try to answer.
Tom
This message was edited Sep 29, 2008 12:54 AM
Mamasita, I have been to Eadaville many times, and yes, Tom is right, it's still open. I am only 15 minutes from there. They have a cranberry festival, and the Christmas lights are great. It's fun riding the train through the bogs at night when the lights are up. They make it seem like the Polar Express. Speaking of the Polar Express, our local commuter rail train does one every Dec. Sounds like it would be fun. I love the movie.
Carrie, I did not know MA was not the top producer of cranberries. Always thought they were. I think it's the main cash crop here, though, isn't it?
Allison, I did not see that episode of Dirty Jobs. I love that show, but don't actually have much time to watch it.
Karen
I have a silly question. No laughing. lol : ) I see the cranberries in the water, and how you get them loaded, but how did they get in the water? Do they grow there? Do cranberries grow on bushes/trees?
I told you not to laugh. lol : )
~Lucy
Thanks for the information and corrections! I saw pictures they had posted about the festivals and Christmas ride through the bogs when we were there years ago. Does anyone know if they did close down for a while, and that's why I was under the impression they were no longer in existence? It was always such a nice trip to do with the kids, and just as interesting for the adults. That was my introduction to how the cranberry bogs operated.
I thought I read somewhere that Minnesota or Michigan was the largest cranberry producer. Does anyone know if this is fact? I always thought MA was the leader, just as I thought NY was the lead in apple production.
When I was a kid, my grandfather took me with him (from Florida) for a visit with his youngest daughter in Boston. We went somewhere and took a train through the cranberry bogs. The train was like a kiddie train, 2 adults could barely sit side by side... and it was open cars on very narrow tracks. Definitely not the one talked about above. That's been 60 years and I can still picture the train vividly...
Darius, maybe Eadaville started out with a kiddie train. I'm not sure. Seems like they had a smaller train when I was a kid.
Lucy, they flood the bogs from holding ponds of water just for that purpose. They also flood them quite often in winter, too. I'm not an authority of cranberry growing. You could find out more on Google. The cranberries grow on low growing plants, a lot like ground covers. They grow wild in Alaska.
Karen
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/315/
It was the first article I ever wrote, and I don't remember all the answers to all the questions in this thread - if I ever knew them, in fact! Some of the links at the end of the article should give you more information - I think oceanspray.org?
Thanks, Karen. Very good article, Carrie. : )
~Lucy
Oh, thanks, Lucy. I like to think I would write a better one now, but oh, well. ^_^
Carrie, that article was great! You're a talented writer for sure. Makes me want to make cranberry sauce. I made some one year using orange juice instead of water. Came out really yummy. Only my Dad and I ate it, as my sister and her daughter don't like whole berry sauce.
Karen
Thanks, nutsfordaylily, for the great pics of the wet-harvest for cranberries!
Close to where I live on the Cape, we have a historic bog that still practices the dry-pick techniques that the original Native Americans taught to the Cape Codders. Sea captains took them on long voyages to prevent scurvy.
(Thumping chest with pride): "Dennis, Massachusetts was not only the birthplace of the cultivated cranberry, but to the invention and standardization of harvesting, packaging, and shipping equipment and practices."
You can read about this bog, the history of the cranberry, and get some yummy recipes by going to the site below. You can visit the bog during the next four weekends in October to watch the harvest and purchase all sorts of cranberry-related products. They also ship by mail.
http://www.anniescrannies.com/
Come on down!!
Thanks, CapeCodGardener! I checked out that site. My neighbors across the street also dry harvest their cranberries, and I always get a big bag of them every year from them. They use helicopters to load the full crates onto the trucks. Here are some pics I took last year of that.
Karen
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And the last one.....
Cool, Karen! I wish I had known about all this last year, but that's OK. It was hard enough to explain that you had to flood the bog and PCAs make the urinary tract less sticky to bacteria.
Well, that's okay, Carrie, cause your really put a lot in article. It was great just as it was.
Karen
Thanks, Karen! Now that I think back, it was supposed to be about how to make whole berry sauce, anyway.
Looks like a lot of fun to watch. As I was scoping out the area for a new doctor, I drove past Ocean Spray Cranberries plant. I was like "wow, didn't know that was here"
Karen, that second set of photos was as interesting as the first set. The Fall colors were lovely! I'm curious; why do your neighbors need helicopters to load up the crates of c'berries? Is there no road up to the bog for a truck to use?
Anyway, what a gorgeous spot you live in.
Yes, there is a road to the bog, but they use the helicopters to load the full crates onto the trucks. How do they do it other places where they dry harvest? Do they take heavy equipment onto the bog to pick up the crates?
Karen
how cool is that
Karen, what a fabulous thread. Thanks. The whole process is fascinating and you've cleared things in my mind with your great images. What a feast of colour. I'll view cranberry sauce in a whole different light now that I've got an idea of the harvesting practices.
Great article, Carrie.
Thanks, Margaret! May I ask you, of all the threads on DG, what made you pick this one?
Carrie, a few weeks back, Karen posted a couple of pictures of a cranberry bog. I'd never heard of such a thing and asked for a little more information. Karen provided this and promised more and the result is this thread. I think one of the many joys of DG is that you're exposed to things that you normally wouldn't be and we're able to view unique aspects of other people's daily experiences. It's the human touch that makes it all the more intriguing.
