Cranberries were widely found in Massachusetts, as documented by the Pilgrims who settled there. Rumor has it that cranberries may have been served at the first Thanksgiving dinner in Plymouth. Recipes using cranberries date back to the 1700s. Cranberry crops also require an adequate fresh water supply. Unlike a lot of fruits and vegetables that farmers plant in the spring and harvest in the summer, cranberries only need to be planted once.
Cranberry vines continue to produce year after year.
Bogs or marshes, the beds where cranberries grow, are layered with sand, peat, gravel and clay. Cranberry vines can survive indefinitely. Cranberries are grown in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Chile, Quebec, and British Columbia. Some 750 cranberry growers are a part of Ocean Spray's Cooperative, maintaining some 47 square miles of bog across the United States and Canada. Yet another unique property of the cranberry is the different ways in which it is harvested.