Vaccinium Macrocarpum, Cranberry

This is the berry you find in every health food store, is a staple in the American thanksgiving dinner and was used by the Indians to make the first health food bar pemmican. They are native to the native to northeastern and northcentral parts of the United States and Canada.

Cranberries are evergreen low growing shrubs, trailing along the surface. They love moist, boggy and acid soils. However, cranberries are not a pond or water plant. In commercial plantations they are flooded for the ease of harvest. In the garden they love similar conditions like blueberries, rhododendrons and azaleas.  They like full sun.

Cranberries are a super food with a very high level of antioxidants a classic for urinary tract infections and also used for other ailments.

Another plant I brought from our former Mountainherbs nursery. We will see weather it grows and flowers in coastal conditions.The flowering this year could very well be induced by the chill it got before the move!

Cranberries are quite happy in pots and they look especially cute when they are in flower.