Mrs. Johnson's

Dry bean with a half-runner growth habit. Excellent, rich flavor as a dry bean. Pods green with light red dashes and stripes maturing to yellow with red dashes and stripes. Pods curved, and very flat and measure 4-5 inches long and 0.5 inches wide. Strong suture string. 4-6 seeds per pod. Seeds are tan with darker tan speckling. Flowers white. Average productivity and early season maturing when grown in 2016 at Heritage Farm. Jim Pike of South Carolina began growing this variety in the early 1970s. He received it from a local gardener named Mrs. Johnson, then in her 80s, who was the grandmother of his friend, Donnie Johnson. Mrs. Johnson reportedly grew the bean all her life. When Jim donated seeds to SSE in 2014, he also noted that "Around here they used to plant it in the corn rows and it would grow up the stalks." Today, Jim uses it as a fresh green bean and cans the surplus. SSE Accession # 132353