It's Cranberry Season at the Schwaegler Family Tree Farm!

Wild Cranberries Picked from the Outflow Marsh
 at Indian Pond - October 2003
 

One of the fun things about living in a place filled with so much natural beauty is making new discoveries, especially discoveries of things that have been right under your nose the whole time.  One such discovery is the wild cranberry bog hidden among the tall grasses of the outflow marsh at Indian Pond.  The cranberry is a native American wetland fruit which grows on low trailing vines like a strawberry. The vines thrive on the special combination of soil and water found in wetlands, however, only 1/4 acre of the 11 3/4 acre marsh has the right conditions for cranberries.   Cranberries are one of only three fruits that are native to North America and grown commercially (the other two fruits being the blueberry and the concord grape).  After 1/2 hour of berry picking, the Schwaegler's cranberry bog yielded 180 cranberries.  By contrast it is estimated that the United States will produce 5.83 million barrels of cranberries this year (a barrel contains an average of 440,000 cranberries and weighs 100 pounds).