Every year I order cranberries from a cranberry farm near us. We all love cranberries and I usually order enough for Gary and me and to share with everybody else in the family. If you haven’t had homemade cranberry juice and sauce, you’re really missing out. There’s no beating the superior flavor and quality of fresh homemade cranberry products!

Cranberries are small, low-growing evergreen shrubs and are grown in special beds called bogs. The bogs have elevated sides that allow farmers to flood the fields at harvest time. Once the fields are flooded, a machine called a harvester is rolled through the fields and a beater bar at the front of the machine knocks the floating berries off the plants. When the berries float to the surface, they are pushed together and pumped into trucks to be transported to a processing facility.

You can grow your own cranberries!

Commercial cranberries are grown in bogs because flooding the fields makes them easier to harvest. However, if you would like to try growing your own cranberries, it is not necessary to create a bog. Cranberries like the same conditions as other acid-loving plants such as blueberries, lingonberries, rhododendrons, and azaleas. If your soil is not acidic enough you can create the right environment with milled peat moss, potting soil, sand, and lots of organic matter. Cranberries grow shallow and like lots of water so a water source nearby — or drip irrigation — is a must. Mixing in some bone meal, blood meal, or both, will give your plants some nutrients to get them started. Putting a border around your cranberry bed will keep grass and weeds from invading and save you a lot of time and trouble with weeds later on.

Cranberries are native to North America and grow close to the ground. Plants can be purchased as one, two, or three-year-old plants. Since cranberries do not typically fruit until their third year, I would recommend getting 3-year-old plants if you want berries the first year of planting. Plant one-year-old plants about a foot apart and three-year-old plants about two feet apart. Cranberries will spread — by runners — and fill the entire bed within a year or two. The berries grow on uprights that form at the nodes of runners. Not fertilizing the plants during the first year or two will force it to produce more uprights.

The leaves of your cranberry plants will turn a reddish purple-brown during the dormant season and even though cranberry bushes are quite hardy, covering them with some type of mulch — straw or pine needles — will protect them from frost. Uncover them in spring after threat of frost has passed.

Making cranberry sauce

Most people think of eating cranberry sauce during the holiday season but we eat cranberry sauce at all times of the year in a lot of different ways. Gary has even been known to put it on his peanut butter sandwiches in place of jelly! I have mixed cranberry sauce into muffin mixes, put a little in zucchini bread, and mixed it in with applesauce. You can also use it in smoothies, as a filling for thumbprint cookies, and as an addition to apple pie. Warm it up and spoon over vanilla ice cream for a real treat! I like to swirl whole-berry sauce in with my yogurt and granola. We also love it not just with turkey, but with other meats as well. I make my own cranberry barbecue sauce, but you can always add cranberry sauce to a store-bought barbecue sauce to add a little extra zip of flavor.

Here are the basic recipes I use — but I have been known to change them up for variety. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves can be added to the sauce without changing the acidity for canning. Adding orange peel to the whole cranberry sauce gives it a little different flavor too.

Jellied cranberry sauce:

• 8½ cups cranberries
• 2½ cups water
• 4 cups sugar

Rinse and sort the cranberries removing any debris and bruised, or damaged berries. Drain. Combine cranberries and water in a large pot. Boil until the skins pop (kind of sounds like popcorn in liquid). Run through a food mill and return the sauce to the pot. Add sugar to cranberry purée and juice mixture. Boil hard over high heat, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. When almost to the jelling point, remove from heat. Ladle hot cranberry sauce into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch of headspace. Tip: for easier removal of jelled sauce, use wide mouth half-pint or pint jars or straight-sided jelly jars. Wipe rim of jar clean; place hot, previously-simmered lid on jar, and screw down ring firmly tight. Process for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.

Whole berry cranberry sauce:

• 8 cups cranberries
• 4 cups sugar
• 4 cups water
• ¾ cup orange zest (optional)

Rinse cranberries and sort removing debris and bruised or damaged berries. Drain. Mix sugar and water in a large pot. Boil 5 minutes and pour in cranberries and orange zest if using. Continue boiling until skins pop. Ladle hot cranberry sauce into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch of headspace. Wipe rim of jar clean; place hot, previously-simmered lid on jar, and screw down ring firmly tight. Process for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.

Cranberry jelly:

• 6 cups cranberry juice
• 4½ cups sugar (more sugar can be added, but I like my cranberry jelly tart)

Put cranberry juice and sugar in a large heavy-duty pot. (To get perfectly clear juice, I use a steam juicer.) Stir and boil the mixture until it reaches the jell stage — about 25 minutes. (The jell stage is reached when the jelly no longer drips from a spoon but starts sheeting off. Once the jell stage is reached fill the jars to ¼ inch from the top, wipe the rims, and place lids and rings on. Process the jars in a water bath canner for 5 minutes. The jelly comes out delicious and perfectly clear.

Whenever I have any leftover cranberries I just vacuum seal them and pop them in the freezer to use throughout the year for lots of yummy treats.