Anyone tried growing cranberries?

[freshfood]

Hey, all,

Every year we plant a lot of the same stuff, but we also pick a couple new things to try. We haven't decided what to do new in the vegetable garden, but I'm thinking about trying cranberries in my newly dug (last fall) area. According to the catalog, I'll need to remove the top 6 inches of dirt and replace it with a 50/50 mix of peat moss and sand, and make sure it stays well watered. But that's all I know, and the plants are pretty expensive - so does anyone know anything about growing cranberries?

The plants I'm looking at are 4 years old, supposed to give a small harvest the first year.

Anyone have any info, experience, etc.??

 

[Rosalind]

I live in prime cranberry-growing territory and listen to the ag reports on the radio, but otherwise am not much help. What do you want to know specifically? Normally cranberries grow in wetlands, so if you have an area that is especially soggy in your yard, that would be a good site: drainage ditches, area underneath a rain gutter, etc. They can tolerate partial shade a bit, at least the wild cranberries around here do. You'll need a good pair of rubber boots for wading through the muck to pick them in fall. They like soil to be quite acidic, so if you can get live peat moss from a pond supply center, that would be good to add to their area. Don't know if I would add sand, really--sand tends to drain quite a bit, and cranberries are happy with wet feet. Think they might prefer some sort of strawy mulch, leafmold mixed with peat moss, some live peat moss growing in their area a bit better. The live peat moss will acidify the dirt and surrounding water, so I hope you didn't plan on growing anything else nearby, other than maybe blueberries and rhododendrons.

The cranberry bogs you see on Ocean Spray commercials are what they look like during commercial harvesting: A tractor with a giant rake drives through the cranberry beds and rakes the berries off the plants, then they flood the bog with massive amounts of river water, and all the berries float to the top where they are skimmed off. Normally the bogs just look sort of muddy and weedy, not flooded like that. You can just pick the berries off by hand, and I suspect this is much easier if their bed is narrow enough that you can reach across it.

There's a sort of viburnum, Viburnum trilobum or Viburnum opulus var. americana (same plant) that gets berries that taste similar to cranberries. Grows the same as any viburnum, not too damp, tolerates sorta lousy soil, gets nice white flowers in spring. I have a few of those on order because I am just not ready for digging a full-on wetland at this stage of my lifestyle.

 

[patandchickens]

I think Buff Hooligans has a few plants?


Pat

 

[freshfood]

I live in prime cranberry-growing territory and listen to the ag reports on the radio, but otherwise am not much help. What do you want to know specifically? Normally cranberries grow in wetlands, so if you have an area that is especially soggy in your yard, that would be a good site: drainage ditches, area underneath a rain gutter, etc. They can tolerate partial shade a bit, at least the wild cranberries around here do. You'll need a good pair of rubber boots for wading through the muck to pick them in fall. They like soil to be quite acidic, so if you can get live peat moss from a pond supply center, that would be good to add to their area. Don't know if I would add sand, really--sand tends to drain quite a bit, and cranberries are happy with wet feet. Think they might prefer some sort of strawy mulch, leafmold mixed with peat moss, some live peat moss growing in their area a bit better. The live peat moss will acidify the dirt and surrounding water, so I hope you didn't plan on growing anything else nearby, other than maybe blueberries and rhododendrons.


The growing directions in the catalog said to mix peat moss with sand, 50-50. I like the idea of live peat moss. I'll have to look into it. I do want blueberries in that area; I had thought of putting them next to the cranberries. Then the black raspberries need a raised bed, I was wondering if I took the dirt that I dug for the cranberries, and used it to make a raised area for the black raspberries would work.


The cranberry bogs you see on Ocean Spray commercials are what they look like during commercial harvesting: A tractor with a giant rake drives through the cranberry beds and rakes the berries off the plants, then they flood the bog with massive amounts of river water, and all the berries float to the top where they are skimmed off. Normally the bogs just look sort of muddy and weedy, not flooded like that. You can just pick the berries off by hand, and I suspect this is much easier if their bed is narrow enough that you can reach across it.

Yeah, I'm looking at just a few plants to see if they will grow for me, then adding more if I want to.


There's a sort of viburnum, Viburnum trilobum or Viburnum opulus var. americana (same plant) that gets berries that taste similar to cranberries. Grows the same as any viburnum, not too damp, tolerates sorta lousy soil, gets nice white flowers in spring. I have a few of those on order because I am just not ready for digging a full-on wetland at this stage of my lifestyle.

I'll have to check that out. We have lots of viburnum-type plants growing in our woods and along the edges of the fields...might be easier than cranberries, if the flavor is close enough.

I know nothing about growing cranberries, so any information is welcome. Thanks for your input!

 

[patandchickens]

The so-called "highbush cranberry" viburnums mentioned in the previous post sure as heck do not taste like cranberries to ME. They are ok bushes (tho mine get defoliated by beetles pretty bad by the end of each season) but the berries are, to me, quite bitter. If you put in enough sugar they make ok jam, but again, to me it does not taste like cranberries. Except maybe in the sense that they are closer to cranberries than, say, to bananas or rattlesnakes.

You might want to taste some before planting any, if it's the fruit you really care about.

FWIW I've repeatedly read that the American highbush cranberry has berries better suited for eating (less bitter) than the European one. I cannot personally confirm this, they both taste awful to me. But I should warn you that they are quite often mislabelled anyhow. I got curious one year (trying to find the American variety in hopes of tastier fruit) and started carrying amagnifying glass with me to nurseries and looking at the leaves. Labelling is really NOT very accurate

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

I'm told it's a trick of when the American highbush cranberry is harvested and specifically how it is harvested--you pick the berries when they have just turned red, still very firm, even hard, then freeze/thaw them to soften the pulp. Once the pulp is softened, it can be sort of gently mashed and the pits strained off. If you boil them, or wait until the berries are softer, then the bitter pit releases its nastiness. The resulting pulpy stuff can then be used for cranberry-flavored jam, jelly, juice, etc.

 

[patandchickens]

Huh, maybe I will have to look into it more and do some experimenting next year, then! If the beetles and birds leave me any.

Pat