Candy

Semi-runner/Dry. 95 dry days. Pods up to 8" and 1" wide. Green streaked with red when seed starts maturing. Seed is large kidney shaped. One of the prettiest, and unique seed colors that a gardener could love to grow. Base is a red-pink with dark red speckling of various sizes over the entire surface. Discovered in my Capron, Illinois garden in 1982, and named by me as the seed colors reminded me of a peppermint candy stick. large seeded bean called "Big Light Red Trout" I acquired from "Wanigan Associates" in 1980 is the seed mother of "Candy". I had never listed this bean in SSE yearbooks until the 2013 seed exchange year. In late 1983 I had sent a seed sample to Ralph Stevenson (MI ST R) of Michigan to share with him the beauty of this bean. Ralph Stevenson was the first grower to list Candy in the yearbook from which it spread through the SSE membership. The older version of the SSE online yearbook history showed under MI ST R (from Russell Crow of Ill.) and from Ann Fuller of Indiana, IN FU A (a find from IL CR R). I still have old seed stock from the early 1980s. This bean has been grown by WSU at their Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research Extension Center under the cranberry category, and is kept by the USDA under accession number PI 642142. After being away from my bean growing and gardening for 22 years I reacquired seed of this bean from IA SSE HF '11. SSE bean 2764