2016 Little Easy Bean Network - Gardeners Keeping Heirloom Beans From Extinction

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 , hard to say who was their source, I got my start from Shirley Bellows who got them straight from Derek Fell and I believe the name should be "Lazy Wife" not Lazy Housewife, this is where the confusion begins, me thinks. I have only given these to a few as you know I don't grow many of any variety in my small garden. I know the Sample Seed Shop is selling them again this year and Remy has a picture showing the difference in the shapes of the true Lazy Wife and the one that has been sold in the past.

Here's the bit of info I have on them...
"The 'Lazy Wife' bean made a brief appearance in the 1980s through a seed company that quickly ran out of seed and substituted another variety when fulfilling orders. The incorrectly identified variety was propagated and offered to other seed sources, unfortunately, so most (if not all) of the 'Lazy Wife' seed sold today is not the historical variety known for such wonderful flavour.

Seed of the true 'Lazy Wife' is not kidney shaped like most other beans, but almost round and shiny white like polished marble. Another way to distinguish the true 'Lazy Wife' pole bean is the shape of the pod. It is not long and round like a 'Kentucky Wonder' or long and flat like a pole Romano, but rather it is knuckle shaped and up to 51/2 inches long. In other words, the pods are flat but the seeds swell up to stretch the skin out like a knuckle of a clenched fist.

Regardless of it's appearance, what sets the 'Lazy Wife' pole bean apart from other snap beans is it's flavour. Just a few minutes of cooking (or Steaming) renders the pods buttery flavoured, meaty, and delicious. Moreover, the white, marble-like beans make the best baked beans after the pods turn brittle.

Perhaps there are seed savers in the United States who are still propagating the "Lazy Wife' bean in their home gardens without realizing the treasure they have."

From SSE catalog…
Setting the record straight- "Lazy Wife Bean"
It describes the original "Lazy Wife" as having been carried by W. Atlee Burpee starting in 1885, who obtained it from Mennonite immigrants in Pennsylvania who had grown it for generations. Burpee then dropped the variety in the early 1900's.
Somewhere along the line (around 1980) another different strain was circulated by the name of "Lazy Wife". SSE admits that they and other venders sold this inauthentic strain for years.
However, the original Burpee strain has been returned to circulation by Derek Fell, a former Burpee Seed catalog manager. Derek had obtained his seed from Bill Byrd of Carversville Pa, who had grown & saved seed for the original "Lazy Wife" ever since Burpee dropped it from their catalog.

So thanks to a few seed savers this bean is now back in circulation, another bean saved from extinction .

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #44​

I first acquired this bean from John Withee's Wanigan Associates in 1978. It's a bush variety and grows without runners called "Grandma's Shell". Myself and Ralph Stevenson (Stevenson's Black Eye, Stevenson's Blue Eye of Tekonsha, Michigan) were the first two growers to have listed it in the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook in 1979. It's been traded around among the SSE membership in their yearbook for 35 seperate listing seasons since 1979. The bean is very productive for a bush plant. I would call it a red horticultural or cranberry type.

"Grandma's Shell"

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #45​

This is another of the many beans I grew this year called "Grape". I recived it from Debbie Groat who operates "Severine Creek Heirlooms" in Rhodes, Michigan. She also has an amazing skill of making jewelery out of beans. The variety is a pole.

"Grape"

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Are those the same variety as the "Grape" Appalachian beans Sandhill sells? (they seem to have the same spherical shape)

 

[Blue-Jay]

I just went and checked the Sandhill Preservation Center website and it sounds like from their description that these are probably the same beans.

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #46​

I know this is a rather mundane looking bean, but it's one I have had a personal connection to for a long time. It's a bush dry bean that I call "Heilings". On an October 1978 visit to my brothers house in Browerville, Minnesota I noticed my brother and sister-in-law had a garden that summmer with beans that had completely dried out. I asked my sister-in-law if she cared that I shell them out for her. She allowed me to do this and I found this rounded beautiful white bean in all the pods. I asked her if I could have a small number to take home and grow. She said that was alright too. I asked her where she got the bean. She said she got it from her neighbor Kate across the road from where they lived. We went over across the road one day on my visit to see Kate and I asked her how long she had grown the bean and where she got it. She thought she might have ordered it from a catalog about five or six years before 1978, but she couldn't remember what seed company or the name of the bean. Kate's Last name was Heiling so I gave the bean her last name and called it Heilings. I had just joined Seed Savers Exchange in September of 1978 and so after growing the bean for two seasons. I had donated "Heilings" along with about 99 other beans to the Seed Savers Exchange (in at that time located in Princeton, Missouri). The bean today is among SSE's over 6,000 bean accessions and is also known in their collections as SSE bean 2820.

During the 1990's my brother and sister-in-law moved away to a new job in Fergus Falls, Mn but kept in touch with Kate until she passed away in a nursing home in 2006. When I put up my bean website in 2012 I told my brother and sister-in-law about the site and that Kate's bean was listed on one of the pages. She seemed excited about that and said she was going to tell people that knew Kate that Kate's bean was up on the website and still alive and growing well.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 I love the histories behind these heirloom beans, it also keeps the memories of those that grew them alive, thanks for sharing.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #47​

A couple of years ago I found a black bean with some fair amount of white on it. A bush plant, and there was something about it I thought possibly the bean with repeated grow outs might develop more white on it with large black spots. So I decided to start calling it "Holstein" like the dairy cow. This year the bean really opened up with larger amount of white and with the large black spots and I got a brown one to go along with it that I'm calling "Gurnsey" like the brown and white dairy cow. The Holstein planting also threw off three more segregations besides the brown and white one.


"Holstein"........................................."Gurnsey"




This bean I also grew out this year. It's one of my late 1970's outcrosses that's been around a long time and Seed Savers Exchange has it in their collections. It's SSE accession number is 2753. A bush snap bean that is good to eat but doesn't have a very creative sounding name. I called it "Illinois Snap". It also has fairly large seeds for a snap bean.



​

 

[Ridgerunner]

I like those dairy cow names, like keeping it in the family. I believe the cattle breed is spelled with an additional "E" though. Guernsey

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Ridgerunner you are correct about that Guernsey cow breed spelling. I wonder though I just might keep this spelling.