Cranberry field

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Today we watched cranberries being harvested. (Oregon is one of the largest producers of cranberries, and that’s the second industry on the peninsula, with tourism being first.) We went through the museum (and gift store~~there’s always a gift store!) and learned the processes, and then walked out to the field to see the growing stages, which was all very interesting, BUT we found a cranberry farm that was actually harvesting their crop. They’re ready about two weeks earlier this year than usual. It was fun to see the kids helping, and it all reminded me so much of the excitement of beet harvest. I’ll try to tell the story through the pictures….

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Photos

Plant
You can see how dark the berries are on these plants. They are just white at the first stage we saw. The vines are evergreen vines, and a bit prickly....not bad, but not soft. The berries are on throughout the plant.

Berries & water
The fields are divided into bogs, which are surrounded by narrow ditches used for irrigating that bog. We watched them harvesting by wet method, They flood the field, which floats the plants off the ground, and also meant they were going to use the cranberries for juice or canned jelly, or tea, or lotion, or one of the hundreds of things they do with cranberries~~something other than whole dehydrated berries, because this method damages the berries, but it is a quicker method of harvesting. The dry method is more manual.

Water paddle
The farmer called this machine a paddle, but we thought it looked like a swather. It beats the berries off the floating vines.

Paddling
I included this one to show the men on the machines. (Some people called this a flailer) They are careful to beat the vines in the pattern they were planted, so they don't pull up the plants.

collecting
This picture shows the people corralling the cranberries. The girl with the rake is scooping out the debris that was washed off the conveyor as it's loaded into the crates on the pickup. Notice the dark haired man on the far side (he's also scooping debris...would that be tare??) I have a story about him later.

More harvesting
The man who looks like he's stepping over something is straddling the ditch. The young man in the yellow star was doing something, and he stepped into the ditch, causing him to fall, filling his boots, and soaking his jeans clear to the waist. When it happened, everyone in the bog started cheering and laughing and clapping!!! He grinned and stepped out and started emptying his boots...no easy feat! I said something to the man staddling the ditch (by this time he was standing on the road by the pump) and he said they are warned to watch out for that ditch. I asked if he'll quit for the day, and he said "No, if he keeps moving, he'll stay warm!" (It was chilly, and we were wearing light jackets.) When the kid came closer I mentioned that he didn't get much sympathy, and he laughed and said he was the second one to fall in that day!

Loading
You can see the cranberries being thrown into the crates, which are then driven down the highway to the OceanSpray plant where they're dumped, washed, and loaded into barrels, which is how they're measured to be paid, and then shipped out...someplace.