GardenPole Bean variety
True Red Cranberry Pole Bean
✓ In your garden
True Red Cranberry is a dry bean (pole), ready in about 102 days. Let the pods dry on the plant, then shell the beans for soups, chili, and storage. Beans are easy warm-season crops — sow the seed straight in the ground after frost (they hate being transplanted), and give it a tall trellis or poles to climb.
“A bean grown to shell and dry for the pantry.”
Growing basics — shared by every pole bean
True Red Cranberry grows like any other pole bean. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Pole Bean page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 4–8 in
- Row spacing
- 24–36 in
- Planting depth
- 1 in
- Soil pH
- 5.8–6.5
- Water
- Moderate
What is True Red Cranberry good for?
- Dried beansShell and store for soups and chili. Great
- Fresh shell beansShell young for a fresh side. Great
- Eaten as podsThe pods get tough — this one’s for the beans. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What True Red Cranberry is known for
We hold one description of this variety and no record of who made it, so it is not printed here. An unattributed claim about a plant is a claim we would be making ourselves, and we would rather show you the gap than fill it.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant True Red Cranberry in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around early Aug, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- late Apr – early May
- Growing
- early May – early Aug
- Picking
- early Aug until frost (~late Oct)
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near True Red Cranberry — and what to keep away
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Cabbage familyTraditional
Chart canon says no. Nobody's proven why. Cheap to respect.
-
Onions & garlicTraditional
The most consistent 'no' in companion planting. Unproven, unanimous.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every pole bean.
Pairings compiled from West Virginia University Extension.
Growing True Red Cranberry — the things that trip people up
- Leave dry beans on the plant until the pods are papery and rattle, then shell and finish drying them indoors.
- A pole bean: put up the trellis or poles at planting. It climbs 6–8 feet and crops over a long season.
True Red Cranberry pole bean at a glance
| Type | Dry |
|---|---|
| Grows as | Tall vine (indeterminate) |
| Days to ripe | 102 days after you plant it outside |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about True Red Cranberry
How long does True Red Cranberry take to grow?
About 102 days from sowing to dry, mature pods.
Is True Red Cranberry a bush or pole bean?
A pole bean — it climbs, so give it a trellis or poles, and it crops over a long season.
Can I start True Red Cranberry indoors?
Better not — beans resent transplanting. Sow the seed straight in warm soil after your last frost.
Browse more pole bean varieties →