Cranberries Plentiful in New Jersey

This time, every year an explosion of rich, red color takes over Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm in Burlington County. It’s harvest season. Pickers and gathers work around the clock in more than 18 cranberry bogs.

“Most would think it’s a swamping wet area, when actually it isn’t. During the cranberry growing season, it’s actually dry throughout the year,” said Stephen Lee IV, cranberry grower with Lee Brothers Incorporated.

Cranberries grow on vines in bogs. Those bogs are flooded twice a year in the winter to protect the buds on the top of the vines and again in the fall to pick. That’s where this machine called the picker comes into play.

“What it does is it drives into the bog and has these egg beaters that are laid on their side basically and what they do is they rotate and strike the vine and the berries are buoyant so they’ll float to the surface of the water, so now we have this cranberry bog with all these berries on top and we have to get them out somehow,” said Lee.

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