Why are cranberries a featured staple of the Thanksgiving feast?
According to a Michigan State University Extension web page article (http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/why_do_we_eat_cranberries_at_thanksgiving), cranberries were believed to be a part of the very first celebration of Thanksgiving.
Native Americans used the cranberry for food, dying fabrics and as a medicinal ingredient.
In the early 1500s, cranberries could be found in great abundance along the Eastern colonies and early Ohio frontier marshes and bogs.
Availability, along with seasonality are the likely reasons that they were selected by the early settlers and local Native Americans as one of the prized foods at the first Thanksgiving table.
Charles Armstrong, cranberry professional at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, wrote in the April 2012 issue of the Maine Garden News that cranberries do not grow in water, but rather prefer a wetland where the soil is moist, well-aerated and acidic (pH of 4.0-5.5).
These plants prefer a growing medium such as sand or peat, or a combination of the two, common to some marsh areas and bogs.
Cranberries, like blueberries, belong to the genus Vaccinium, and the family Ericaceae (the Heathers).
Vaccinium macrocarpon is the native species of cranberry grown in North America and the one grown commercially in the United States today.
These sun-loving plants flower and fruit year to year, and are well adapted to nutrient-poor acidic soils.
Cranberry roots are typically very shallow and associate with mycorrhizal fungi.
The fungi provide the plant with the increased ability to more effectively absorb essential nutrients and water through its roots.
Cranberry plants have two distinct growth habits, runners and uprights.
The runners of a cranberry plant are like small vines that form a vast netting across the ground.
Uprights then grow from nodes on the runners appearing as small flexible canes. The uprights serve as the location where the plant produces its flowers, which later develop into those recognizable red berries.
Harvesting of cranberries can be done dry, but is most commonly done wet in commercial operations.
Ripe red berries fall off of the uprights into the bog.
The bogs are then flooded with water, where the ripe cranberries float on the surface the water.
They are then harvested by sucking them into a processing machine.
Be sure to check out this short video of a cranberry harvest at one of the oldest cranberry farms in Wisconsin, the largest producer of cranberries in the U.S., at http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/us_cranberries .
Cranberries can also be grown at home in the backyard garden as an edible ground cover or in a raised bed.
The most significant factors to their success in the backyard environment are acidic, sandy, peat combination soils and watering.
You can learn more about growing your own cranberries by visiting the following links:
• Extension Master Gardener-Master “Gardeners grow cranberries “the size of quarters” in home garden” https://blogs.extension.org/mastergardener/2014/11/24/master-gardeners-grow-cranberries-the-size-of-quarters-in-home-garden/
• Maine Home Garden News, April 2012 “How to have your own cranberry garden” https://extension.umaine.edu/gardening/blog/2012/03/29/maine-home-garden-news-april-2012/#article-1
• University of Maine Cooperative Extension Cranberries website at https://extension.umaine.edu/cranberries/
• University of Wisconsin Extension-Fruit Program-Cranberries at https://fruit.wisc.edu/cranberries/
To discover what the cranberry contributes to our health, check out the latest health news and research from the Cranberry Institute at http://www.cranberryinstitute.org/
To learn about Ohio’s only remaining cranberry bog be sure to visit to the Cranberry Bog Nature Preserve in Licking County. To learn more about this unique connection to our glacial past visit http://naturepreserves.ohiodnr.gov/cranberrybog or http://thebuckeyelake.com/history_cranberry_marsh.php
Heather Neikirk is a Stark County Extension Educator in agriculture and natural resources for The Ohio State University. Neikirk also serves as co-leader for Extension’s Local Foods signature program. If you have questions about local foods, farm to school, food production, or food gardening, contact her at 330-832-9856 or neikirk.2@osu.edu.
