Day 4 of our Va-cape-tion (cont.): Tour of a cranberry bog! (AKA The Bog Blog)

On our way back to the Cape from our tour of Harvard Yard, we stopped in Sandwich, Massachusetts to take a tour of a working cranberry bog. This bog, although seemingly small, is the second largest bog in the area, and is also the oldest. It is run by a man named Dave and his son, and Dave showed us around his farm.

Harvested cranberries look like shimmering jewels when they're in a box together!

Cranberries are grown in marshy, sandy soil, which Massachusetts is known for. They are the number one food crop grown in the state and where the cranberry industry got its start. The cranberry harvest takes place once a year from mid-September through early November. Unfortunately we were there a few days too early before the bogs were flooded for harvesting, but we still got to see the cranberries growing inside the bogs and learned about the process of growing and harvesting the fruit. Dave used to have a few other bogs around the United States and Canada which provided cranberries to Ocean Spray, which notably gets its cranberries from over 700 small family farms.

The bog before being flooded

Cranberries can be harvested either by dry harvesting or wet harvesting. Dry harvesting is used to pick fresh fruit sold at local farmer's markets, road-side stands, and grocery stores, and wet-harvested cranberries are used for juices, sauces, sweetened dried cranberries, and ingredients in other processed foods. This particular farm does wet harvesting. When the cranberries are ready to be harvested the bogs are flooded, which takes four to five days to fill. The cranberries have little pockets of water in them which make them float to the surface and then they are dislodged and skimmed with harvesting machines. A pump machine sucks the cranberries out of the water, drains off the water and waste back into the bog, then loads them into trucks to be taken away for processing. This pump can load 30- to 40-thousand pounds of fruit in two hours! On a smaller farm like this, one person can harvest an average of an acre an hour, but newer machines on bigger farms can pick five acres an hour.

Looking closely you can see the cranberries growing

Dave showed us a few tools that have been used in the past and what he now uses in his own cranberry harvesting:

A 6 quart pail along with human hands were the original picking machines (can you imagine all that work?!).

A snap pail, which was used later.

A rocker box scoop, which was used in the 80s

A dry harvester machine. It would take a team of five people to harvest one acre a day with this machine.

The articulated reel harvesting machine with its water reels that stir up the water in the bogs, dislodging the fruit so it can be collected.

The pump which pulls the cranberries out of the water.

Also, since cranberries are not capable of self-fertilization, bees are essential for cranberries to be adequately pollinated and you will often find bee hives maintained around the bogs. Thanks, bees! 🐝