GARDEN IDEAS
Growing Cranberries
Cranberries really are one of the best 'super-foods' available.
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They are known to have been part of Thanksgiving festivals in the early seventeenth century and later became a traditional accompaniment to turkey and other poultry dishes.
Cranberries are used in many types of recipes; sauces, juices, fruit pies and puddings. They have also been proven to have many healing qualities including problems with urinary tract and kidneys.
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Growing cranberries
Buy your plants from a reputable nursery or garden centre. But Amazon can come to the rescue if you can't find them locally.
Cranberry "Pilgrim" Bush in 2 Litre Pot
The plants are evergreen, and naturally quite floppy & untidy, yet can produce good crops from their first year
Flowers in late spring, the red fruit ripens throughout autumn. Supplied as an established bush in 2l pot, ready to plant out all year
Preparing and growing cranberries:
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Cranberries are a ground-cover plant and will happily cover a fairly large area in 2-3 years. The plants produce flowers and fruit after three years. When planting young plants, allow space for them to spread.
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The plant sends out runners, a bit like strawberries, and each one of these will grow into an upright plant that eventually produces cranberries.
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Cranberries like an acid soil and will benefit from being close to water, but the ground should never be water-logged. They also prefer a sandy soil - add a layer of sand to the bed every couple of years in the spring. This also helps stop weeds germinating.
Grow on an open site so pollination is easier. If you want to grow just a couple of plants, allow a 2ft.(30cm) by 2ft.(30cm) growing area for each plant.
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Otherwise prepare a bed and expect about 1lb of fruit per square foot of land covered.
Plants can be grown indoors but they tend not to produce fruit because the plants need sunlight to develop.
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Plant in autumn or spring. Watch out for frosts... sprinkle plants and soil with water as soon as possible after a frost, or the plants will be damaged, and the harvest will suffer.
As with many perennial plants, once the initial work is done, they will pretty much look after themselves. Keep an eye on them for any viruses or insect attacks though.
Protect the low growing plants from the cold by covering with plastic and mulching but watch out for garden pests... mice love to nest under your carefully applied layer of mulch - mice are a pest in the garden and will devour all your fruit before you've even realised it's there...
When your bed has been producing for three years, cut away the old shoots, tidy runners and generally straighten up the bed. You will get a larger crop from your plants if they have space to grow and develop.
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Harvesting:
Pick cranberries by hand when red, from September to October depending on your climate. Pick all fruit before any hint of a frost.