What is a bog?
So what is a bog anyway? Is it a lake? A swamp? A marsh? Actually, a bog is an area of soft, marshy ground, usually near wetlands, where cranberries love to grow. During the harvest, water is pumped in and out so it gets really wet. It's what makes the cranberry such a unique fruit.
Cranberries grow on long-running vines in sandy bogs and marshes. Places like Cape Cod usually come to mind when you think of a cranberry bog. But Ocean Spray also has farms all over North America-Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and parts of British Columbia, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Many of our growers' farms are handed down from generation to generation, and they take a lot of pride in getting the very best out of their cranberries. You could compare them to wine growers in that sense. Except they wear waders.
The Harvest
Cranberries were originally picked from the vine by hand. Growers then switched to wooden cranberry scoops, which had comb-like teeth on the end to sweep through the vines and pick off the berries. The majority of growers today use either the dry or wet harvest technique.
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In dry harvesting, growers use a mechanical picker, which looks similar to a lawnmower. Cranberry vines are trained to lie in one direction, which allows the picker's metal teeth to comb the berries off the vine and into a receptacle at the back of the machine. These are the cranberries that you'll find in your grocer's produce aisle, and are most commonly used as an ingredient for cooking and baking.
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Wet harvesting begins the night before the harvest when growers flood the bogs with about half a foot of water. The next day, water reels, nicknamed egg beaters, are used to stir up the water. As a result, the cranberries float to the surface of the water. The floating berries are then corralled tightly together, until they resemble a plush red carpet. They are then pumped into trucks and taken to a processing plant. These cranberries are used for processed foods, juices, sauces and relishes.
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Cranberry growth and survival depends on a rare and fragile combination of soils and geology, the right climate and a dedicated grower. Once planted, the vine takes four years to produce the first crop of berries. The exact timing of a cranberry harvest changes each season due to weather in the previous months. When cranberries are ready, growers must work full days and in just a few weeks, the berries are picked, processed and packaged.
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White cranberries are harvested just a few weeks earlier than red cranberries so they are inherently lighter in colour, in fact, nearly white although some have a slight blush. The breathtaking beauty of the white harvest offers a striking contrast to the deep crimson colours of the traditional red harvest. White cranberries are blended to make smooth, less-tart cranberry beverages which offer a milder smoother, less-tart taste than traditional red cranberry beverages.
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Ocean Spray grapefruit growers in Florida pick the best of their crop for delicious grapefruit products >>
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