How to collect cranberries in the swamp. Where cranberries grow and how to collect them, as well as other interesting facts about this unique berry. Cranberry jam

Cranberries are one of the most useful, widespread and valuable wild berries. The plant genus includes only three species: ordinary, small-fruited and large-fruited, which is often called American. In Russia, where common and small-fruited cranberries grow, they have been known and appreciated for a long time. It was thanks to Russian merchants that it was known in medieval Europe as the “Russian berry”.

In fact, about what beneficial features has cranberries, many people knew. Scandinavian sailors took whole barrels of this berry with them on their voyages and, despite its low calorie content, actively consumed it. It was used as a remedy for scurvy and a universal cure for various ailments. American Indians used the fruits of the plant more widely: they ground the berries and smeared them on dried meat to extend its shelf life, prepared drinks from them, painted their faces with the juice, and used them to treat all kinds of infections and skin diseases.

Common view distributed throughout Eurasia, in zones with temperate climates, small-fruited cranberries grow mainly in the Russian north as a fairly rare view. In Russia, this plant can be found almost throughout the entire territory, excluding the Caucasus, Kuban and the southern Volga region. In Europe, the plant grows north of Paris, and in America its range covers all of Canada and the northern United States. This shrub likes to settle in damp places, wet lowlands and swamps, in hilly areas it prefers hollows with high groundwater levels. The plant is very sensitive to the environmental situation and quickly disappears in places disturbed by economic activity.

How do the types differ?

Common cranberry is a small evergreen shrub with thin and flexible shoots about 30 cm long. The leaves are alternate, small, oblong, covered with a waxy coating on top. The flowers are pinkish or light purple, drooping. The fruits are ellipsoidal or spherical berries with a diameter of up to 12 mm. One plant can produce up to several hundred berries per season; it blooms in June, and berry picking begins in September.

The description of small-fruited cranberries is not much different from ordinary ones, with the only difference being that the fruits and all parts of the plant are smaller. Due to its small berries, many often confuse it with another, no less useful plant, which is found in the same places. To find out how to distinguish cranberries from lingonberries, just take a closer look at them:

• Cranberries spread along the soil and are never higher than 15 cm, and lingonberries grow as bushes up to 25 cm in height.
• Cranberries choose damp hollows, depressions and swamps, and lingonberries choose dry hillocks.
• Cranberries ripen in September-October, their berries are sour and bitter, and lingonberries ripen already in August, and their fruits are sweet and sour.
• For cranberries, the main benefit lies in the fruits, which are rich in vitamins and minerals, while for lingonberries, in addition to the berries, the leaves are also useful.

Cranberries have lower calorie content than lingonberries, and they also differ from each other in the composition of nutrients.

American cranberry looks different from its Eurasian relative. This species has two types of shoots - creeping and erect, on which fruits are formed. The berries are large in size, reaching 25 mm in diameter in some varieties. The calorie content and benefits of large-fruited varieties are the same as varieties with regular berry sizes, they differ only in less acidity.

Chemical composition

The composition of cranberries is diverse and includes many useful elements. The fruit consists of 90% water and has low calorie content. 100 g of berries contain 0.5 g of proteins, 0.2 g of fat, 3.7 g of carbohydrates, as well as 3.3 g of dietary fiber, 3.7 g of mono- and disaccharides, 3.1 g of organic acids. Thanks to this composition, the calorie content is only 28 kcal.

From the point of view of nutritional and medicinal benefits, the content of sugars, vitamins, organic acids and pectins that make up cranberries is of greatest importance. In addition, the fruits contain betaine and bioflavonoids, catechins, anthocyanins and leucoanthyanins, flavonols and phenolic acids.

Sugars are mainly represented by glucose and fructose, and polysaccharides are pectin compounds. IN chemical composition cranberries contain organic acids: citric, benzoic, ursolic, malic, quinic, chlorogenic, oleanolic. Amber and oxalic acid were found in small quantities.

Cranberries per 100 g of berries contain a significant amount of vitamin C (15 mg), thiamine (0.02 mg), riboflavin (0.02 mg), pyridoxine (0.08 mg), folic acid (1 μg), as well as vitamin E (1 mg) and vitamin PP (0.3 mg). The chemical composition of cranberries contains quite a lot of iron; manganese, copper, molybdenum, magnesium, iodine, aluminum, nickel, barium, etc. are also present.

Collection and storage

No matter how far this berry grows from human habitation, people still strive to harvest it for future use. Cranberries begin to ripen in early September, when their fruits are still hard and not fully colored. If you pick it at this time, then, while indoors, the berries will fully ripen and become rich red.

It is best to harvest cranberries from the period of their full ripeness until the first frost, then they will retain the greatest amount of useful components. In many northern regions, the berries collected in the spring were considered the most delicious - they are the least sour, but they contain much less vitamins.

These valuable berries can be stored in a cellar or cool room, filled with plain water. This method is only suitable for fully ripened fruits. Alternatively, cranberries can be frozen in small containers and removed as needed. The fruits can be dried and also made into preserves, jams, and marmalade.

In mid-September, ruby ​​beads are scattered across the moss cover of sphagnum bogs. The most valuable berry of the forest zone is ripening - marsh cranberry.

However, you can pick cranberries not only in September, but also later, until winter. And even in the spring, after the snow melts, they will remain in the swamps - snow cranberries, which are much sweeter than autumn ones. But there is no vitamin C left in them anymore.

Common cranberry, swamp

This is a plant from the heather family. A relative of lingonberries, blueberries, and heather.

In Russian swamps, common cranberry, otherwise called swamp cranberry, predominates. Distributed in the north European Russia, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in Kamchatka and Sakhalin. And also in northern Europe.

In addition to common cranberries, small-fruited cranberries also grow in Eurasia. It is, however, more often recognized not as a separate species, but as a subspecies of the common one. And there is also a large-fruited cranberry, a predominantly American species, growing in the swamps of Canada.

Swamp cranberries naturally grow in swamps. In raised, sphagnum bogs. In transitional, sphagnum-sedge swamps. Found in swampy forests, tundra and forest-tundra.

Sphagnum moss is a constant companion of this most valuable berry. After all, it is he who creates these swamps. If you are interested in this very peculiar representative of the bryophyte department, please take a look at.

Everything about swamp cranberries is small and not very noticeable. Besides berries, of course. The leaves are tiny, the stems are thin and creeping.

However, it is a shrub. Thin, slightly thicker than ordinary thread, the stems are woody and very durable. Only the shoots of the current year remain soft and covered with fluff.

Each individual bog cranberry bush grows in one place for several decades. During this time, a pine tree in the forest grows into a multi-meter tree. And the creeping cranberry vines reach a length of almost a meter.

Cranberry is an evergreen plant. Its small leathery leaves with rolled edges overwinter under the snow. They are glossy, dark green above, whitish, covered with a waxy coating below.

Swamp cranberry is not too demanding on soil. And what kind of soil is there in the swamp? – Acidic, poor in nitrogen compounds.

But this is exactly what cranberries are happy with! Try to plant it in a well-fertilized bed - the plant will feel bad. For its successful growth, it will be necessary to bring peat from the high sphagnum bog. Moreover, provide excess watering.

But the swamp cranberry has irreplaceable helpers for life. Like all heathers, it forms mycorrhiza - a symbiotic community with fungi.

Fungal hyphae permeate the entire plant. The cranberry shares sugars produced during photosynthesis with the fungus. The fungus provides the shrub with nitrogen compounds.

It’s very beautiful in the sphagnum bog in May! Blooms include rosemary, wild rosemary, and palmate root. Swamp cranberries are also blooming.

The flowers are small, but elegant. On a thin peduncle, bell-shaped pale pink corollas rise above the moss hummocks. The stamens grow together into two pollen tubes. In the center of the flower there is a short pistil with a four-locular ovary.

It seems that a thin melodic ringing can be heard. Or is it still the mosquitoes that are “ringing”?

In summer, berries are formed in place of flowers. They are white at first, but by the end of August they begin to turn red. The berries are round or oblong, and quite large - reaching a diameter of a centimeter or more.

The shrub can no longer hold them. And the berries scatter on greenish-yellow, whitish, sometimes reddish moss. Swamp cranberry is the healthiest berry in the northern forest.

Sometimes called "northern grapes". For some reason the comparison doesn't seem particularly appropriate to me. But “northern lemon” is spot on!

Benefits of cranberries

Swamp cranberry has the most valuable nutritional and medicinal properties. In addition, this berry is unique in its preservation. It can stay fresh for almost a whole year. It is enough to sort out the berries and scatter them in a dry place. Benzoic acid in the berries prevents them from rotting.

Compotes, jams, jelly... Cranberries in their own juice... Puree with sugar... In sugar syrup... In powdered sugar. The use of berries is very diverse!

Excellent jams are made from cranberries. It’s even awkward to compare tasty and healthy cranberry juices and drinks with the “household chemicals” that grocery stores are filled with.

Cranberries are also used as a seasoning for meat dishes, and as part of some salads. Add cranberries when sauerkraut - it will become both tastier and more beautiful on the plate.

In addition to homemade preparations, the berry is widely used by the food industry. Juices, jams, preserves, drinks, alcoholic beverages.

And let's not forget that marsh cranberry is a medicinal plant!

It tastes sour. The juice contains a high acid content. Citric acid predominates. That’s why it’s a “northern lemon”! There are benzoic and quinic acids. A lot of ascorbic acid is vitamin C.

As a source of vitamin C for the prevention of scurvy, marsh cranberry has only competition in the north.

Cranberry juice is indispensable for colds and flu. It has excellent antipyretic and tonic effects.

Cranberry juice, especially in combination with honey, treats coughs and sore throats.

Benzoic acid not only preserves the berries themselves. Its powerful bactericidal effect also benefits us.

Cranberry juice and fruit drinks are indicated for diseases of the kidneys and urinary tract, both acute and chronic. If the disease is caused by a bacterial infection, the natural antibiotic benzoic acid in combination with potassium counteracts it.

In addition, cranberry juice and fruit drinks help cleanse the kidneys, remove harmful substances from them, and prevent the formation of stones.

Cranberries also have the ability to lower blood pressure.

Contraindications for the use of cranberries ? Of course they exist.

Caution must also be exercised at low blood pressure.

But since ancient times, cranberry juices and fruit drinks have been a source of vitamins and a medicine for treating children. Especially for colds and various viral infections.

How to pick and store berries

Berries should be picked after they are completely ripe. And this happens no earlier than mid-September.

Collected immature, slightly reddened, they will, of course, turn red. How tomatoes picked green turn red. The only thing is that these berries spoil quickly. And as a therapeutic and prophylactic agent they are of no value at all!

It is best to pick berries by hand, “berry by berry,” choosing fully ripe, dark red, and largest ones. But that doesn’t usually happen! Most often, special scoops called “nabirushki” are used for collection.

However, these devices do not cause much harm to the plant itself, unlike lingonberries. Thin stems and small leaves easily slip between the teeth of the scoop, and large berries fall inside.

The collected berries are sorted, removing debris, unripe and damaged fruits. They can be stored fresh in a cool, dry place.

Sometimes the berries are poured with cold water and kept soaked. As the water evaporates, you just need to add it to the container.

Berries are also frozen and stored in the freezer in food-grade plastic bags.

During my childhood, the old people called this berry “crane fruit”. I wonder what English name cranberries – Craneberry– means “crane berry.” And in North America settlers from England sometimes called it Bearberries, which translates as “bear berries.”

Of course, bears and cranes feast on cranberries, as well as wood grouse, black grouse, hazel grouse, and partridges. Birds are the main consumers of fruits; they also spread cranberry seeds.

But... Take another look at the photo of the flower. Who or what does it remind you of?

Swamp cranberry flowers

For some reason it looks like a bird's head with a beak. On the beak of a crane. Maybe this is where these words came from - craneberry, swamp cranberry?

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