I have worked here in Cranberry Country for 10 years and this is the first year I’ve actually gotten to photograph a cranberry harvest in progress. It didn’t happen by accident, either. My co-worker, Donna, gave me a heads up so on the way home from work yesterday Dale and I took the scenic route. We were not disappointed.
These bogs are wet harvested, which basically means that they flood the bog with water.
Use these machines to free the cranberries from the vines.
And then gather up the cranberries with these floating rubber thingies.
Those are technical cranberry harvest terms, in case you were wondering.
Okay, I may not know much about how it actually works but I do know that it makes for excellent photo opportunities. And I also know that cranberries that are wet harvested are used for juice and sauce.
Do you know what that means? It means that you’ll think about this post the next time you buy a bottle of cranberry juice!
Those are some awesome photos! I’m also excited that this means there’ll be fresh berries at the market any day now so I can make pumpkin bread with walnuts and cranberries. Yay!
Love these. What a subject.
Great photos and harvest in progress! Love the red color against the green.
…or make cosmos. mmmm…cosmo….
I have seen cranberry harvesting before and thought it was pretty cool. Did you know that white cranberries are just under ripe cranberries?
Great photos and educational as well, I am craving cranberry juice now.
very cool, I’d always wondered how it was done. The only reason I knew they grew in water was because of the ocean spray commercial 🙂
Cool! I loved seeing these photos of the harvest. That last photo is great with the red & green stripes and shot of blue. Can I get a 5×7?
But what about the cranberries in bags? I thought they were wet harvested too.
Gorgeous photos! Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting. I’m glad you were there to photograph the process and share it with us.
what a color, huh? love to see it.
Carole, those are beautiful pictures. It is so nice to live in New England isn’t it!
That is quite a process and your photos are so informative. For some reason I think of you when I think of cranberries. Must be because of where you live.
Great photos! Thanks for sharing something I’ll probably never see in person. Love the colors 🙂
Thanks for the cranberry lesson. Such an interesting fruit. And so very pretty in whatever is served with them.
Very interesting, and with such nice photos. Just last weekend the “When do the cranberries come?” discussion began. I think I read that those ‘plastic things’ are called ‘booms’. Whatever. Now, I’m going to have to add cranberry juice to the grocery list.
I was having my morning craisins as I read you post! But they’re “dried” so they must not have been wet-harvested – right? Hmmmm…. or maybe along the lines of the white cranberries being underripe red ones, the dried ones are just very old?…
I spent my summers in Wareham Carole and this was a part of every fall. Thanks for the memories…you should see the snakes in those bogs! 🙂 We would pick weeds for $2.00 and hour and then go to Lincoln Park for our big summer day out…Woo Hoo!
Thanks for the great photos! Now I want to knit something cranberry colored!
Lovely pictures!
…I just saw Patty’s comment…snakes?! yeesh
absolutely beautiful. Fall has definitely arrived
Mmmmm cranberry juice, and cranberry sauce, and dried cranberries in just about anything. Suddenly I am very hungry and it’s nowhere near lunch time. Great pictures!
Fall has definitely come to New England! Cranberries that you buy in a bag are ‘dry-harvested’ … which means that they are picked by hand. Back-breaking work, to be sure. I’ve seen both kinds of harvests, and both are fascinating 🙂 If anyone has time, Ocean Spray has quite the visitor center, definitely worth the visit.
what an incredibly cool process – can you imagine being the person(s) who thought of doing that?!
and great photos.
I had no idea.
Amazing photos!
Dirty Jobs did an episode about wet harvesting cranberries. Very interesting how it all happens.
That looks like fun! Maybe I should add “cranberry farmer” to my list of things I’d like to do…
I grew up in cranberry country (although not in MA, but in N. Wisconsin). Ingenious how they harvest, isn’t it?
There’s a fun children’s book called Cranberry Thanksgiving that is set in your area of Massachusetts.
Love your pictures…I’ve seen it on TV, but I liked your terminology better ; ) ! And I absolutely loved your comment at Norma’s…couldn’t have said it better.
Very cool! Northern Wisconsin is Cranberry Country, too.
I laughed so hard at your comment at Norma’s. EXACTLY!
Beautiful. I love your pictures.
I could see a skein of sock yarn named “cranberry harvest”, couldn’t you? Everything goes back to knitting!
Now I would have loved to see that! You have such fun – and, yes, I will think about that when I drink my cranberry juice…
I love seeing the cranberry harvest. So colorful and RED, one of my favorite colors.
That’s exactly what this means. And dang, it’s just beautiful.
I have always wanted to visit cranberry bogs… thanks for taking all of these photos, and explaining the process in technical terms:)
This is wonderful — love all the colors in these photos. I love cranberries, too! ; )
I’m amazed at how many millions of tiny cranberries there must be to make up such large swaths of red!
Great photos! I love the look of the bogs when they’re flooded.
Thank you! I will enjoy thinking of those photos as I drink my morning glass…
🙂
We love us some cranberries . We love the northwoods of Wisconsin for their cranberries too. Cranberry scones…….Fireman’s favorite! Cranberries dried, in salads. Cranberry spritzers!
Thanks for sharing these, Carole. We love cranberries at our house. The colors are beautiful and very fall-like.