The Traveling Wheelchair

58 Pond Street
Carver, Ma 02330
Phone: 508-866-2162
http://www.flaxpondfarms.com/

Its AUTUMN and time for CRANBERRIES to be HARVESTED! I live close to many cranberry bogs but never saw cranberries harvested so my friends Kevin, Kelly and I ventured out to see how cranberries are harvested. We first stopped at Flax Pond Farms located in Carver and were excited to see how the cranberries are harvested. It’s not very wheelchair accessible yet I don’t expect a family farm to be very accessible. I highly recommend a visit to Flax Pond Farms. It’s well worth the trip to see the beauty of cranberries harvested!

Flax Pond Farms is a 100 acre family owned and operated cranberry farm. The 100 acres includes 34 acres of Cranberry Bogs that have been producing cranberries since turn of the century. Dot and Jack Angley, the owners are one of 600 independent cranberry growers for Ocean Spray. Wow, I thought I live right down the street from the Ocean Spray Headquarters in Middleborough! Dot or Jack offer FREE TOURS from September 18 to October 31 – 1 to 5pm daily. They will answer all your questions about cranberry growing which I had many.

There is a dirt road leading to the property. A large dirt parking area is located on the side of the barn which is a farm store. There are no handicap parking spaces yet no parking places are marked on this dirt terrain.

We did see an accessible outdoor sink located in the parking lot. We all laughed because it is of a wheelchair accessible height and the pipes are covered in a rubber hose material :>)

Located on the property is a farm store, cranberry bogs, a pond, reservoirs, a swamp, a blueberry patch, Christmas trees and wildlife. A wheelchair accessible wooden ramp leads to the entry door of the farm store. I was in my manual chair. It’s a little tough wheeling on the dirt to get to the ramp so I recommend you bring a very strong friend like my friend Kevin :>)

The farm store has lots of locally made cranberry products, recipes, cranberry condiments, cranberry-land honey, hand-painted cranberry vine candles, cranberry popcorn, cranberry taffy, trail mix, chocolate candies and a collection of antique cranberry paraphernalia. You’ll even be able to taste their delicious homemade juice samples. Inside the shop is an antique “screening house” where Dot or Jack will show you how fresh cranberries come out of the “Antique Separator”. You can even eat a few which we did.

Dot took us on our tour of the cranberry bogs. Dot is wonderfully kind and sensitive. I learned that cranberries do not grow under water yet they need a lot of water to grow which is done with underground irrigation systems. I also learned there are Dry Harvest and Water Harvest. Flax Pond does the dry harvest method. We drove our van out to see this process and saw some cranberries in bogs not yet harvested. In dry harvesting a motorized picker travels the bog combing the cranberries free from the vines. Workers collect them and place them in large bins. Cranberries picked by this method are sold as fresh fruit.

In water harvesting a motorized machine with a revolving reel is driven into flooded cranberry bogs and the floating cranberries are gently removed from the vines. The berries float and then are corralled to shore by floating booms. Water harvested cranberries are processed into sauces, juices and other products. I also learned that Cranberry bogs are flooded for protection from the cold and in the fall for harvesting during the water harvest process.

I really wanted to see a water harvest for I’ve seen it in pictures and it is so pretty to see the cranberries glisten in the water. Dot was so kind; she told us directions to get to a cranberry bog that was doing a water harvest this very day. It was only a few miles away so off in our van we went to see this beautiful sight of cranberries being harvested with the water harbest method!

Then this past Sunday, I saw Dot’s picture and story about the farm in the Boston Globe article, Berried treasures By Michele Morgan Bolton / Boston Globe/ October 4, 2009. Again I highly recommend a visit to Flax Pond Farms to meet Dot or Jack and see this FIVE STAR family run farm. Just remember to bring a friend to help you get your wheelchair around because as far as accessibility it only gets about 2 Stars.