Cranberry
Vaccinium macrocarpon
A low, evergreen, acid-bog relative of blueberry. Commercial flooding is for harvest, not how the plant lives all year. Tart; sugar in sauce is a recipe, not a plant trait.
GROW → HARVEST → EAT → DRY → POWDER → CAPSULE → GUMMY — forms are not equivalent. Food first.
Identity
What it is
A low, evergreen, acid-bog relative of blueberry. Commercial flooding is for harvest, not how the plant lives all year. Tart; sugar in sauce is a recipe, not a plant trait.
Edible portions
- fruit
Absence of a portion from this list means it is not treated as food here — not that every other part is toxic.
Growing
- Climate. 2–6 bog culture
- Light. Full sun
- Soil. Acid peat/sand, high water table but not stagnant forever
- Planting. Specialized. A barrel culture is a hobby, not a farm.
- Harvest. Fall when fruit colors; they store hard.
Processing, drying, storage
- Storage. They keep weeks refrigerated, unlike most berries. See also Make → Storage.
Preparation and culinary uses
- Sauce, drying, baking
Nutrition and compounds
- Vitamins (qualitative, well-known associations). vitamin C — not milligram values.
- Plant compounds. proanthocyanidins. Presence is not a dose, a cure, or a reason to buy a capsule.
AAA interpretation Food first. These associations explain why a plant shows up in a nutrient conversation — they are not a supplement shopping list.
Next steps
Sources
- USDA PLANTS Database — taxonomy and range (verify current entries)
- USDA FoodData Central — nutrient profiles for foods (verify current entries; this page does not invent milligrams)
- State cooperative extension growing guides — verify for your region
Honest incompleteness is preferred to fabricated completeness. If a section is missing, no record for it is attached here — not a claim that the plant lacks that characteristic, and not that it was omitted as a secret.
Internal quality class A. Strong page: distinctive plant facts plus practical growing or kitchen use.