Cranberry surprise in Mandaue

Maria Magdalena Lim shows the cranberries blooming in trees  at the back of her house  gate in barangay Casuntingan, Mandaue City. (CDN Photo/Melissa Q. Cabahug)

Maria Magdalena Lim shows the cranberries blooming in trees at the back of her house gate in barangay Casuntingan, Mandaue City. (CDN Photo/Melissa Q. Cabahug)

Fifteen trees with  red and purple cranberries  grow behind the gate of Maria Magdalena Lim’s two-story home in barangay Casuntingan, Mandaue City.

Passersby wonder about the strange fruit, which is grown in  cooler weather of north America and Europe.

“Nothing is impossible. It depends on the people having good hands,” she said.

With Lim’s   green thumb, the trees are thriving like the  orchids, two small apple trees and assorted plants in her garden at home, near the dry market in Casuntingan.

Lim, 66,  said it wasn’t  difficult to plant and care for the  trees, whose fruit is used for juice, desert toppings, raisins  and sauce in turkeys for traditional Thanksgiving meals in the United States.

Lim recounted that she was vacationing with  friends in the US eight years ago when she ate some cranberries and wondered whether she could  plant some  in Cebu. She placed the seeds in tissue paper to take home.

Upon returning to Mandaue City in 2006, she planted the seeds at the back of the gate. She was surprised to see them grow into trees.

“I didn’t think  they  would  grow, but I still planted them  hoping that they would bear fruit,” she said.

She said she didn’t have to add fertilizer or do anything special.

“I just water it once a day  with my other plants,” Lim said.

If it rains, she doesn’t bother watering it again.

As an only child of farmers,  Lim said she was inspired by her parents’ passion for planting.

“I experiment,  especially with plants  because that’s my first love. You get to witness the beauty of nature and  experience contentment  seeing the fruits of your labor,” Lim said.

Cranberries are praised by health advocates as a  good source of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients.

The juice is commonly prescribed  as a treatment for  urinary tract infection (UTI).

When the cranberries ripen by October, Lim said she stocks them in the refrigerator. She makes  cranberry juice or dries the fruit to make raisins.

Last year she started selling some plants and fruit to friends and neighbors. Some friends later phone in orders or visit her garden.

Visitors drop by her house to buy cranberries for P300 per kilo or the  plants for P1,000 each.

She said her young apple trees are expected to bloom in two to three years.

“After eating green apples I bought from the supermarket, I just thought that the seeds would grow here just like the cranberries,” she said.

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