Cranberries are native to the Long Beach Peninsula, with an ample supply of bogs and marshes. As a result, Long Beach is one of the top producers of cranberries in the United States. Cranberries grow on vines that are dormant in the winter but blossom n the spring, and by summer, the berries are a bright red color. September and October are cranberry harvesting months.
(Last Updated October 2026)
The first step is flooding the fields the night before harvesting the berries. Then, the following day, the local growers "Beat" the berries off the vines with large tractors built specifically for cranberry harvesting. The big paddles, pictured above, beat the berries off the vines causing them to float to the water's surface.
The cranberries all float to the surface of the water. So the next trick is to get them from the surface to the truck.
