While blueberry season is in its final death throes, cranberry season is now in full swing, as evidenced by this tweet from Latvian State Forests (LVM).
Purvos jau sārtojas dzērvenes! Dzērvenes ir vienas no visvairāk cildinātajām ogām – ne tikai kā dabīgs enerģijas avots un jaunības paildzinātājs, bet arī tādēļ, ka satur daudz minerālvielu un vitamīnu. pic.twitter.com/s3EyH9JEIv
— mammadaba (@mammadaba) August 29, 2022
"Cranberries are already growing in the marshes! Cranberries are one of the most celebrated berries - not only as a natural source of energy and prolonger of youth, but also because they contain a lot of minerals and vitamins," said LVM.
Nor is this an empty claim. We at LSM miraculously fact-checked cranberry readiness on August 28, before the tweet above had even been made. We can confirm that in the swampy places which remain sodden even in the middle of a heatwave, cranberries are indeed ready, plentiful and delicious. Munching one in the middle of a mire with the temperature at 30 degrees Celsius delivers a curiously incongruous taste of Christmas cranberry sauce.
If you fancy hunting these boggy beauties yourself, you'll need to take a few precautions. First, check it is an area in which you are allowed to pick, not a nature protection zone, private land or a military firing range.
Some waterproof boots are recommended unless you want to walk home with inundated insoles, and you should also take precautions against ticks and other insects, including a liberal amount of bug spray. Happily, cranberries tend to thrive in only the cleanest and least polluted environments, so wherever you find them is almost guaranteed to be beautiful.