#sellbotcog

The first thing I want to clear up is cranberries DO NOT grow underwater. They grow in un-flooded bogs for a majority of the year, and the bogs are only flooded for two reasons: harvest time and to protect the buds from winter conditions.

Here’s my backyard view as of 14. June, 2026:

As you can see, the bogs are lowered down, with dirt road borders. As you may not be able to see, each bog has water around the perimeter. The bogs are laid out on a very subtle decline from a reservoir. Gates under the dirt roads allow water from the reservoirs to flow in as necessary. There are also sprinklers out in the bogs that help water the berries, which are controlled by pump houses interspersed throughout those dirt roads.

Here’s a pump house and a gate:

(Sorry for the shit pic, I’m not running all the way up my driveway for this, I’m eating dinner LOL. I am quite literally ON the bogs. This is my front yard view.)

Not pictured: in the summer, we also work with beekeepers to bring boxes of honeybee hives out on the bogs to assist with pollination. These beekeepers use it for cranberry flower honey, which… admittedly, I’m no honey connoisseur, but I’m sure someone out there could tell you the difference in flavor or texture or whatever if there is one.

Autumn is harvest time! It’s a real busy time of year for the growers, including my dad (god, ESPECIALLY my dad). This is where all the action happens.

First, the bogs are flooded. This is because cranberries have four chambers (or air pockets if you will) inside of them, which house the seeds. We use big fancy machines to tumble the berries off the vines. Growers push these machines in the same direction every year—they MUST follow the path the vines grow in, or the vines will be ripped out of the ground. Think of it like petting a cat. You don’t want to rub their fur the wrong way!

I don’t have a readily available picture of my own of one of these machines, so here’s a stock photo. If you want to see more, look up “cranberry egg beaters,” that’s what they’re nicknamed LOL. I believe the official name is “water reels,” but I’m not sure, I don’t have anyone I can ask at the immediate moment!

As you can see, thanks to the chambers inside, the berries float to the surface of the water.

Initially, back in the good ol’ days, the bogs would not be flooded at all for harvest. Instead, farmers would walk into the bogs with scoops. The prongs would slot between the vines, and the berries would fall into a receptacle by the handle. We happened to have one in my basement I can show off!

I’ve used one of these things (we let tourists use ‘em sometimes in the past) and boy, let me tell you, people REALLY underestimate how much strength you need to have as a farmer. (Not just cranberries. In general. It’s not a fun little cottagecore lifestyle out here.)

Back to the floating berries—they’re reeled in with yellow booms, then sent up a conveyor belt into trucks. Those trucks go to a nearby Ocean Spray processing plant, where the mass is taken and quality is tested in an upstairs lab. Outside, the berries are washed in a couple of large pools. Downstairs inside, after washing, the berries are sorted along a shaking conveyor belt. The good ones will bounce, and the poorer ones will drop off. They’re packaged into massive crates by factory workers, then shipped off to be made into proper shelf products.

This goes on for a month or two. Harvest typically begins mid- to late September, and ends early to late November.

Now, in the winter, the buds for next year’s fruits have already formed. They are extremely important to protect. Farmers flood the bogs in the winter to keep them safe from any frost damage and other weather issues. They’re drained again when the weather gets a little warmer.

(During frost season, my dad used to have to get up EXTREMELY early in the morning to deal with the frost, but thankfully, he’s had a chance to get more sleep in recent years.)

That’s just the growing process! I can’t even BEGIN to explain all the duties there are on the farm. Since we’re a pretty big one, there’s a lot that goes on. I worked one summer in high school taking GPS coordinates, fixing sprinklers, and leveling out the dirt in to-be-planted bogs, among many other things. There’s also an office, where we keep track of all the business stuff, filing, hiring, taking calls, dealing with tourists, all that fancy stuff.

I hope this was a decent explanation! If you want to know more, New Jersey’s Red October is a great documentary about the process. However, it is virtually fucking un-searchable, because of the song October by The Cranberries and The Hunt for Red October (which I’ve never seen but my mom claims is fantastic). Here’s a direct link to it on Hoopla if you’re interested!

https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11186411

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least conventional concept might be pimento? she's basically just an olive enjoyer. she's designed to look like an olive, has olive-seeking vision, and collects olives in her fanny pack. it's not all that abstract but it's strange in a simple way, I suppose

this art is a couple years old and done VERY quickly and loosely lol

quirkiest in-universe might go to meat puppet, who is just a standard run-of-the-mill weird girl who says strange things

(from 2020)

or lalula, who is a living haunted doll

(from late 2025)

OR. last option. kinoko, who is an office worker jackalope girl with mushrooms for antlers. she's more like the "person who seems normal at first glance but says increasingly disconcerting things as you get to know them" type. I don't have a good colored image of her but I do have a doodle I really like

she has huge irises

I also have a few body horror type characters that could be considered weird but I may include them separately for those who don't wish to see certain horror tropes