I got a phone call last weekend from someone wondering how the cranberries were looking this year. My initial reaction was… huh? It’s early September. I hadn’t even thought about cranberries yet.
So I went and checked at a couple spots and asked a few other people who have been known to traipse through a bog or two. It was a bit of a surprise.
There seem to be lots of them. Which isn’t a huge surprise, because this year the plants were not under water when they were trying to bloom. Last year, there were not a lot of berries. High water does not have a good effect on pollination. Your average bee has enough trouble flying, let alone carrying scuba gear to get to flowers that are underwater. So the lots of berries part was not a shock.
But they’re starting to get ripe. Or, at least, turn red. There may be a difference between ripe and red, but there is certainly some colour to them.
I have heard all my life that cranberries need a night or two of frost to start to get ripe. Someone forgot to tell the cranberries. They seem to be getting ripe, and we haven’t exactly had a lot of frost just yet.
In any case, it looks like a good year for cranberries.
