Dry Bean 'Cranberry'

A horticultural type bean dating back to the 1800's, they are multi-purpose, can be used as anap beans when very young, as green shell (O...Read Morectober beans) or as dried beans. A speckled bean.

Grown outdoors, during the period from 11-9-2003 to 02-21-2004, the six plants, grown in a 16 inch standard clay container, using a pea...Read Moret, bark, sand and perlite mix, yielded approximately seven ounces of dry shell beans. The seed source was a bag of Janet Lee, "Cranberry Beans", packaged for cooking. The source beans were quite dark by comparison (probably due to age) and quite a lot smaller.

The plants were robust and sturdy, having large medium green leaves. Leaf Rollers were the only real pest and as with virtually all beans grown here during this time period, some White Mold was noted, though not rampant. The plants produced large numbers of pods containing, on average, five seeds. The plant terminated its growth at approx. twenty inches and when the majority of the pods reached maturity, the plant's leaves began to yellow and die.

Easy to grow and quite productive. Probably not really worth growing (in small quantities) for the dry beans, as they are cheap and readily available here but for the huge, fresh (awesome) shelled beans and even the very young green pods, used as snaps, it is a worthwhile variety for winter growing.

Good luck!