Growing Cranberries in Cape Cod

November 18, 2016October 23, 2023 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 27 Comments

What is not to love about the cranberry?

The berry’s gorgeous, soothing, deep red color screams, “Hello, holiday cooking, I’m back!”. The raw fruit is acidic and bitter but is easily tamed by simmering in sugar, water, and a few other goodies to make cranberry sauce,

or by baking them in a delicious nutty pie,

or by sugaring the fruit to make a cheery holiday cake.

Cranberries always add a distinct zing that makes them an excellent addition to sweet and savory culinary dishes and, many, a pretty cocktail.

My fascination with cranberries began as a child growing up in Southeastern Massachusetts, thirty miles from the Ocean Spray Cranberry House restaurant. My mother and stepdad could not pass that restaurant without stopping for the cranberry and cheese Danish pastries. It must have been the sourness of the cranberries that made my mother crave those pastries while pregnant. She would sweetly ask one of us to drive to Wareham to pick up a few. As teens, we were happy to get in her car and go wherever she asked.

Flowers, Berries, and Bogs

Early New England settlers called the cranberry a crane berry because the fruit’s pink blossom resembled the head and bill of a Sandhill Crane. Thanks to Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh for letting me use this striking image:

Cranberry fields look like other farmlands along the roadside

until late summer when, if you look closely, you will see red berries among the green vines that carpet the ground.

In October, the bogs are flooded, the fields are raked to dislodge the fruit, and the berries float to the surface.

If you dissect a cranberry, you will see four interior chambers filled with seeds and air. These air pockets allow berries to float.

The same air pockets cause berries to bounce when dropped and to pop when cooked as the air expands. As a middle-schooler taking Home Ec, we were taught to rinse berries in a bowl of water and to discard those that didn’t float.

Horticulturally, cranberry vines are perennials, some of which have been growing for over a hundred years. Cranberry bogs consist of different layers of soil. The first layer is a naturally occurring clay base. It keeps the ground watertight. Next is a layer of gravel for drainage, followed by a layer of spongy, acidic soil called peat, and topped off with sand.

The Harvest

Originally, cranberries were picked by hand. In the 1890s, wooden scoops with built-in screens were invented and replaced hand-picking. My friend Kendra has a marvelous collection of these harvest implements.

In the 1920s, a “walk behind” mechanical harvester was invented, which is still used today for the ten percent of cranberries that are “dry-harvested.” These carefully handled cranberries are packaged in bags and sold for baking. By the way, if you are making a recipe written before 1980 that calls for “one bag of cranberries,” they mean a 16-ounce bag. In 1980, Ocean Spray switched to 12-ounce bags after a cranberry shortage. Regarding weights and measurements, a 12-ounce bag has 3½ cups of berries.

In 1960, a “wet harvesting” machine was invented. It required a foot of water to be piped into a bog to flood it.

Once flooded, a wet harvesting machine crawls over the field and dislodges berries from their vines, allowing them to float to the surface

where they can be corralled.

Next, they are “vacuumed” by growers.

Ninety percent of cranberries used for juices, dried cranberries, and canned sauces are harvested in this manner.

I am indebted to Minda Bradley for photos of her family harvesting cranberries in Kingston, MA.

Sometimes, water is piped in before a winter freeze to protect vines from the cold. As the warm weather arrives, growers drain the fields to allow vines to come out of dormancy and begin their next growing season.

Cranberry plants were traded by early colonists in exchange for goods from Europe. Sailors ate the high in vitamin C berries while crossing the sea to prevent scurvy. The plants were eventually transplanted to Europe, but soil conditions were not the same, resulting in a different acid level and flavor. Lingonberry or English moss berries are examples of the European version of cranberries.

Ocean Spray Cranberries

Grower-owned Ocean Spray is a cooperative of over 700 farming families across North America who grow over 60% of the world’s cranberries. The cooperative was started in the 1930s in Wareham, MA. It is a treat to stumble on one of these old weathered Ocean Spray signs nestled on the side of the road in Cape Cod.

I tried to root a cranberry vine. but I wasn’t successful. Still, I was able to admire it on my windowsill for a few weeks.

Cranberry Recipes from Judy’s Chickens Blog!

A Cake for All Seasons

Mrs. Walker’s Cranberry Nut Pie

Cranberry Muffins with Orange Zest and Pecans

Brie Bites with Preserves and Toasted Spicy Pecans

Grandma’s Cranberry Sauce

Sorghum Oatmeal Cookies with Ginger and Cranberries

Sorghum, Oats, and Cranberry Granola

Meera’s Arugula, Feta, Dried Cherry (or Cranberry) Salad with Toasted Almonds

Roasted Butternut Squash, Brussels Sprouts, and Cranberries

Special thanks to my New England friends, Donna and Charlie Gibson, and Beth Hayes, for help with this story.

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The Sheep of Nashville: The Chew Crew

October 23, 2016September 22, 2017 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 21 Comments

Unlike my normal rambling openings, I’m going to cut to the chase.

This was the scene at Becca and Joe’s farm over the weekend. I stopped by their house because I heard the sheep from the Nashville Chew Crew were “working” in their yard and I wanted to show our out-of-town guests another side of Nashville. That Zach Richardson, founder, owner, and chief urban shepherd of Chew Crew was there showing his college buddies his flock in action was bonus.

The Chew Crews’ work around Nashville, “cleaning” fields of invasive plants in a sustainable way, is both novel and legendary having been well documented by The Tennessean and by my delightful and funny friends over at Mason-Dixon Knitting.

What makes the story even better is to see a young man, a Nashvillian, use his gifts and talents to start a successful business doing good in the community. Zach went to MBA (Montgomery Bell Academy) for high school and UGA (University of Georgia) for undergraduate and graduate school where he earned a degree in Landscape Architecture. His area of expertise is targeted urban grazing, a sustainable method of clearing overgrown lots without using chemicals. Zach uses sheep to clear lots. Zach is adorable, spoken like a mother, I know.

Just before Zach arrived, we were admiring the Chew Crew flock at work. Reba, their guard dog, was barking unhappily. It is her job to stay with the herd 24/7 and protect them, with the help of an electric fence, from predators. She saw us as predators.

Zach arrived with his border collie, Duggie. Duggie’s job is to gather and guide the herd of sheep when Zach gives commands.

In this photo, the sheep are waiting for their next command.

These sheep are known as “hair” sheep. All sheep were originally hair sheep, but with domestication, their hair to wool ratio gradually changed to be more wool than hair, if that was the desired trait. You can read more about that at Sheep 101.

In this photo, you can see the fields already cleared by the sheep.

When we were in New Zealand, I thought of another potential use for the Chew Crew: clearing the grass around vineyards.

The Chew Crew is comprised of sixty sheep, all ewes (females) and one ram. All of the ewes are pregnant and due in January and February. There is lots of excitement ahead for the Chew Crew team.

Always check the website for the most current version of a recipe.

To Jump or Not to Jump in New Zealand

June 11, 2016September 9, 2017 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 10 Comments

Kia Ora from New Zealand! I have so much to write about our trip, but for now, here is a quick story about bungy jumping.

Yesterday, as we were driving along the Kawarau River on our way from Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand to the mountain village of Wanaka, we stumbled upon the parking lot of AJ Hackett’s bungy jumping operation located near the historic Kawarau Bridge. This is the birthplace of commercial bungy jumping.

We pulled over to check the place out. The Kawarau Bridge is 142 feet above the Kawarau River. The bungy company maintains the bridge which is now a historic landmark. When we arrived, there were no jumpers in the queue, but there were a lot of people on the sidelines assessing the distance between the jumping platform and the river. Definitely shudder-worthy stuff.

All I could think about was what it must feel like to step off the ledge. I mean people aren’t doing this in anguish. I had just seen a stunning production of King Lear in Wellington the night before. Lear was mad as hell as he stood out on the ledge; these jumpers were jovial. I guess I am not a thrill seeker, but man was I ever intrigued by the IDEA of jumping. So intrigued, I kept trying to photograph the actual stepping off the ledge part, as if, in doing so, I would get a glimpse into the head of a person crazy or brave enough to do something so primal, yet according to friends who have jumped, exhilarating.

As I was busy overthinking the situation, this superhero showed up.

I followed Spiderman out to the ledge/heath/platform to get a closer look.

Here’s the drill on the bungy jumping operation. First, a staff attaches a fail-safe harness around the jumper’s waist.

While a staff member prepped Spiderman, the first jumper of the day walked out onto the platform where another staff member, himself tethered to a safety cord, wrapped a thick towel around the jumper’s shins and ankles (so there wouldn’t be any bruising). Next, the attendant attached an ankle harness over the towel and clipped on the long bungy cord.