Just Me in the bogs

Me in the bogs
Originally uploaded by williamsnursery

Yesterday I got a little bogged down with work....

Actually I got to spend the afternoon in the cranberry bog at Lee farms. Many people have a list of things that they want to eventually do...and instead of driving in a fast race car, or going to the moon, I've always wanted to partake in a cranberry harvest.

NJ is third nationwide in the amount of cranberries that are produced. There are only three fruits that were native to this part of the country. The concord grape, the blueberry, and the cranberry.

There are approximately 3500 acres of cranberries in production in NJ. Most Cranberries in NJ are wet harvested. To wet pick, floodgates on the reservoir feeding the selected area are opened and water flows into the ditches and over the vines to a depth of about 18 inches, just enough to allow the water reel, which resembles a large egg beater, to work. The rapidly rotating water reels stir up the water with sufficient force to dislodge the ripened-cranberries, which float to the surface in a brilliant red mass of color. More info here.

I've included a slide show of some of the pictures I took below. The colors are amazing.