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Hello from Bandon!
It's fall, which means it's time to harvest our cranberry crop. For those of you poor city folk who think the berries grow in cans, I'll give you a quick education.
Cranberries are grown on vines in shallow beds (Yes, I said beds. Not bogs. Don't even get me started!). At harvest, we flood the bed, drowning the poor little berries where they sleep. They don't feel a thing. Then, we agitate the bed (and we all love being agitated in bed, don't we?), which loosens the berries from the vine, causing them to float to the surface.
We then corral the berries so that we can easily collect and remove them.
We use suction to remove them from the bed (keep your thoughts clean, folks...), and quickly clean out any debris (such as vine parts, bugs, and mashed berries) as we pour the berries into large wooden crates for packaging.
When we're done, the water drains away, and the cranberry circle of life begins anew. Beautiful, isn't it? And wet.
There are lots of different ways of doing all of the above, depending on the size of your bed and farm. Us smaller farmers tend to do things as simply as possible. Agitation is with a small paddle boat (and not a spouse), corraling is done with a floating "boom", and our staff tends to be family and neighbors coerced into thinking they are doing something fun. We harvest a bed a day at our farm.
It's fun, fast, and not a bad way to spend an afternoon. That is, as long as it's not storming, and the pumps are working correctly, and the kids are being behaved, and the mayo hasn't turned at the food table.
Of course, then the hard work really begins - selling them for a decent price! We farmers don't make a lot on the berries - that's done by the folks squeezing them into those pretty cans! Our farm is organics-only, so we drive up to Portland and sell the berries at farmers markets and to a few select restaurants who believe in treating their customers well!
You've just completed Cranberries 101. Now go buy a can and enjoy!
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