The cranberry harvest is in full swing on Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, where commercial bogs were first planted in 1883 with vines imported from New Jersey, Capital Press reports. Cranberries are now Pacific County's second-largest crop by area, at 1,579 acres and more than $10 million in annual sales, according to the US Census of Agriculture.
More than 20 farms on the peninsula produce about 75,000 barrels, more than 7.5 million pounds. Statewide, Washington State University counts more than 100 growers on more than 1,500 acres, who produced about 15 million pounds, roughly 150,000 barrels of 100 pounds, in 2025; about half is sold as fresh fruit. No statewide forecast for 2026 is available.
Tammy and Tim Conklin, who have run CranBear Bogs in Seaview since 2023 and now own three bog sites, were harvesting their ninth bog of the season on 9 October, a one-and-a-half-acre planting of the large-fruited Pilgrim variety used mainly for juice and dried cranberries. "On this farm, this season, we're down quite a bit," Tammy said. "But that's farming."
Most local growers wet-harvest, flooding the bog so the berries float, which is hard, tiring work. New this year, the Conklins use a spray bar made from PVC pipe and driven by a portable generator, an idea from another grower. "It saves your arms," Tammy said: it agitates the berries, washes off leaf debris and pushes them up the conveyor belt.
The season was celebrated at the Cranberry Harvest Festival, run by the local Cranberry Museum on 10 October, where children could try rakes and tools in a bog set aside for visitors.
Photo: Lance Cheung / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Source: Capital Press
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