Thanks Gary. I got the Speckled Cranberry from SSE, and the UWVC came in a trade from someone at T'ville. I suppose I'll have to do as you suggested and trial them both. The main subject of my interest, however, is an unidentified cranberry bean (or october bean of some sort) that I spotted at the farmers market a couple years ago. The farmer called it a Wooster bean and said his family's been growing it for generations. (I'm in western NC and that's pretty typical here.) Anyhow, he gave me some seed for it and I grew it last summer. It was the best bean I've ever grown. Gorgeous big round pink and white beans, grew like gangbusters, easy to shell, super productive, delicious, and it hardly took any time to shell a big pot full of them. It was the perfect bean. So I was thinking I'd trial THAT bean against whichever of the other two was a better bean. I've never grown any cranberry beans before. Maybe they're all good. But it sounds like I'll have to compare all 3. I'll be glad to send you some UWVC in the fall. I'll have lots. I grew 200 feet of the Wooster bean last year. I think I really like Cranberry beans.

Wow. I had not seen this list before and had no idea that so many other peoples interests in AV's, paralleled my own. I think I have close to half of those on the list! I have been a big fan of the "buckeye" series of AV's and I have several. Like all of us here, our tastes change from time to time. Mine have evolved to where I have a distinct preference for variegation. I have not added a plant to my shelves for a long time that did not hold some promise for variegation. As a result, just going off the pics, I think I would gravitate toward the Buckeye since it appears to have a more prolific variegation pattern.

Looks wonderful, I have been in the mood for pancakes, and the cranberry syrup looks marvelous. Saving this for when the kids are home, or I would be forced to eat them all.

I did check a couple of pages at Harvest for this topic, but didn't find anything. That's why I posted. But perhaps I didn't go back far enough. I miss the old days when the search engine was actually useful . . . I think I didn't move forward because there were no cranberries at that time. Now they have come in and are actually on sale! I'm wondering if anyone has actually tried that NCHFP recipe? I would probably sub some jalepeno but again, just not loving all that onion and wanting to punch it up with cilantro and some garlic, cumin and ginger. That would be similar to horseradish. I just don't have horseradish on hand. If you don't eat meat or a lot of cheese, one does not find many uses for it . . . It's an ingredient in creamed herring or whitefish but I don't make those dishes either . . . Maybe I will try the fresh version in a small batch to see if I like it. I was going to halve the recipe for the canned version anyway . . . I have quite a few jars of various relishes already. I like them but they don't even make good gifts, most of my friends do not have adventurous palates.