| Author | Content |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 15, 2007 9:53 PM Post #4298198
| Carrie where in Mass did you grow up? I grew up in Hanson Mass the Home of Ocean Spray for the first 50 Years of its Operations I picked Cranberrys as a Kid with a Hand Scoop For Extra Money Paul |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 15, 2007 10:01 PM Post #4298218
| Oh, I grew up in Brookline, now I live in Milton, but my former SIL used to be bookkeeper for Ocean Spray; they lived in Pembroke. Was that before they invented those machines or for fresh sales? It's definitely one of those family-run, keep-the-kids-out-of-school-when-the-berries-need-picking type of crops. Hanson (except the AFB) is all malls and stuff now. :>( Avon is Ikea. Progress. xx, Carrie |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 15, 2007 10:56 PM Post #4298354
| before they used that machine pembroke is next to hanson i also know brookline |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 15, 2007 11:33 PM Post #4298472
| I know :>) So how is Florida treating you? Milton is not the place we the thought it would be when we moved here but it's just too much trouble to move and besides, there's our whole garden! x, C |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
 December 16, 2007 12:13 AM Post #4298604
| Carrie, what a great article. When I got to the part about making nut bread with cranberries, I am reminded that we have a wild cranberry here in Alaska (vaccinium oxyoccos), which is also called "crane berry" for the flower which looks like a crane's bill. We harvest them with "comb rakes", a metal flat can with comb teeth which we comb lightly over the low growing ground cover, which conveniently has its berry just a little higher than the leaves. They grow along side the mossberry (empetrum nigrum),which we also collect with the berry rakes and use both in the nut breads.
Carol |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 12:43 AM Post #4298679
| Great - another North American native fruit! They didn't mention mossberries when they talked about native fruits. Carol, there are also all kinds of cranberry equivalents in Scandinavian countries, but I couldn't talk about them all, so I concentrated on the Pilgrim type of cranberries. Do you need to wash your berries? Are they in PlantFiles? Do you ever a] eat them raw or b] use them for decorations? x, C |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 16, 2007 1:25 AM Post #4298805
| floridas ok to hot tho |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 2:08 AM Post #4298969
| And no seasons. x, C |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 6:42 AM Post #4299734
| The mossberries and cranberries are firm enough to wash, yes. Not like blueberry, where you lose too much juice. I make jelly out of both of them, but are too tart for me raw. I have made cranberry sauce like you get in cans, but it's too labor intensive for more than personal family use.
Carol |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 3:08 PM Post #4300217
| How about the whole-berry kind I made? It didn't take two minutes! Well, it took longer than that, but it only took one pot, and no sterilizing - somewhere, Irma Bombeck says 'cranberries are so acidic that they are naturally preserved,' but I couldn't find it when i went back! I gotta taste these mossberries.
xx, Carrie |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 16, 2007 3:24 PM Post #4300261
| back when the white man first came to mass the Wampanog indians called the cranbeerys Marshpeas thats where the name for the town of Mashpee came from my counsins are wampanog am half Mic Mac |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 4:01 PM Post #4300389
| Carrie, always been a sauce girl, no whole berry sauce for me. Just different tastes for different people,
Carol |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 4:04 PM Post #4300400
| REALLY! I should have interviewed you. Thanks for the factoid! xx, Carrie |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 4:06 PM Post #4300415
| Yup, Carol, Chacun a son gout that means everyone has his taste, it's all I can remember from 6th grade French! x, C |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 16, 2007 4:07 PM Post #4300420
| Milton is next to Quinacey Right? |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 4:19 PM Post #4300462
| Yup - Quincy on one side, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Canton. 128 is the bottom edge with Canton across it. The perfect suburb. Not. We picked it because it was near my mother and my ex-husband's mother. And it used to have good schools, until we moved in, lol. xx, C |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 4:22 PM Post #4300468
| Carrie, what berries we use mainly for decoration and bird feeding are Mountain Ash clusters. They make such a statement in all white winter that we are even now collecting clusters for freezing whole to feed the birds when they've stripped the trees about Jan/Feb and draw back birds not usually seen. We also put blueberries and cranberries out in the feeders.
Carol |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 4:36 PM Post #4300521
| Wow, cool! So different. I mean in days gone past, birds were an enemy; they ate the berries people wanted to eat, so we shooed them away. Now, we try to lure them closer. Do you have to store them inside frozen (we have a really small freezer) or do you just cover them up and put them outside in a shed or something? xx, Carrie |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 5:07 PM Post #4300578
| Most Alaskans have large freezers for all the fish, game, berries and general stocking up on butter, bacon, you know what you would need if all the power went out. Freezer kept on porch will stay frozen in power outages. So, most have large freezers, which leaves room to cater to bird watchers, taxidermists (wrap those critters really well!) and large hail and snowball collectors. LOL hehehehehe So, yeah, we have to freeze them or they will mold in the 'between rainy damp' before the freeze.
Carol |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 5:18 PM Post #4300605
| Aha, I was thinking you probably had freezers bigger than mine, which just needs to hold the occasional gluten-free muffin. Do they sell my Ocean Spray fresh cranberries there? Probably $10 a bag! xx, Carrie |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 5:38 PM Post #4300657
| Yes, Ocean Spray canned. Only on holidays fresh frozen and we stock up, maybe 4 bags to last the winter for the birds. No fresh cranberries, but the fresh frozen are about $8 to $10 a large bag. |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 5:42 PM Post #4300676
| Well, same here, except it's fresh fresh, not fresh frozen, but they're only available a few weeks a year. xxx, Carrie |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 16, 2007 6:13 PM Post #4300798
| i use to fish walston beach |
carrielamont
Euless, TX (Zone 8a)
December 16, 2007 6:26 PM Post #4300837
| Wolliston? Yuck, nothing clean enough to eat there any more, although people still fish there "recreationally". My ex-husband grew up in Squantum. Do you fish in FL? Small world! x, C |
phicks
Lakeland, FL (Zone 9b)
December 16, 2007 8:17 PM Post #4301156
| yes i fish i also know Squantum to use to live in wareham |
cathy4
St. Louis County, MO (Zone 5a)
December 16, 2007 10:27 PM Post #4301474
| Carrie, LOVED the cranberry information! |
ceeadsalaskazone3
Seward, AK
December 16, 2007 11:28 PM Post #4301647
| Carrie, when is your next article? You would be good at any theme. Great writing skills.
Carol
This message was edited Dec 16, 2007 10:19 PM |
