Cranberries

Many years ago, I struggled for a solution to the drainage issues in section C of the Medicinal Herb Garden. Section C is on a south facing slope and that is a good thing for growing many plants. Unfortunately, the west side of the bottom half of the slope is the low spot and that is where the water drains to…and stops. One solution has been to turn off the irrigation heads in some of the beds but another solution has been to grow plants that like it moist. A pleasant surprise has been Vaccinium macrocarpon, our native, eastern North American cranberry.

Vaccinium macrocarpon (cranberry) section C. This is how it looks when flowering.

Cranberries on a frosty morning in section C.

Washed and ready for cooking.

Not only are they easy to grow in a damp, sunny spot, but they produce an amazing amount of fruit per square foot and the plants are only 6-8 inches tall. They are spreaders, so in the right spot you can grow a reliable, trouble-free (at least they have been for me over many years) crop that will keep expanding on its own. Being bog plants, they don’t like a heavy clay/silt soil which is often the sort of wet area we encounter in urban yards, but you can amend your soil with a lot of organic matter and see how it works.  Keep at it, experiment! Think like a bog. If I can grow olives in Seattle (I have a jar of olives from Medicinal Herb Garden trees curing in my refrigerator right now… really.), you can grow cranberries in your sodden yard.

Most people add sugar when cooking cranberries but they make a deliciously tart sauce just as they are, simmered with a little water until they start popping.  They’re high in vitamin C and antioxidants, and the refreshing, mouth puckering juice is commonly used to prevent and treat urinary tract infections.

The great state of Washington is currently the fifth largest producer of cranberries in the USA. To be honest, we are a very distant fifth and a lightweight compared to the number one producer, Wisconsin, but we have two beautiful mountain ranges, a desert and the Pacific Ocean and not nearly so many mosquitoes, bitterly cold winter days or hot, muggy summer nights, so let us be content.

There are two closely related species represented in the Medicinal Herb Garden, the lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and the small cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos). Neither has produced fruit…yet, but I’m hopeful. Both are circumboreal, extending all the way up into the arctic tundra. The lingonberry appears to grow no further south than British Columbia on the west coast but the small cranberry has been found in western Washington, especially out on the Olympic Peninsula. I haven’t run across it yet but I’m looking.

If cranberries aren’t a food-medicine, I don’t know what is. And you don’t need a wet yard; you could grow them on your deck in a big tub of peaty sand…or sandy peat. Just keep them moist and give them plenty of sun. Home-grown cranberries for Thanksgiving definitely give you bragging rights. Good luck.

such tart crimson fruit

dotting the bogs and tundra

ruby red treasure

See you in the garden.