Photo: Town of Middleborough
MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Fall in New England is more than just pumpkins patches and apple orchards.
At Benson’s Pond in Middleborough, it is peak cranberry harvest season right now until November.
Erin and Cass Gilmore are third generation cranberry farmers at Benson’s. During harvest season, they open up their cranberry bogs only on selective weekends for tourists to experience wet harvesting first hand.
Erin told WBZ NewsRadio that sharing this passion and wet harvesting on the farm to somebody else is a “special adventure.”
Wet harvesting is when cranberry bogs get filled with water, egg beaters separate the berries from its vines, and then the berries float to the top, which makes picking much faster and more efficient.
“I think the best way to compare is, you know, doing white knuckle driving [in traffic] and then getting off and smiling,” Cass said.
Benson’s farm is part of the 700 family farmer’s that make up Ocean Spray, a co-op owned and managed by farmers.
Cranberries are native to Massachusetts. During the early days, it was found that adding sand into the bogs helped increase production, an old practice that originated on Cape Cod in the mid-1800s and still gets used today.
Though Wisconsin is now the top cranberry producer in the county, churning out more than five million barrels in 2023, the cranberry bog history is deeply rooted in Massachusetts.
“We get people from all over the country, all over the world, and that’s just something special about that,” Erin said.
WBZ's Jay Willett (@JayWillettWBZ) reports.
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