Setser's Centennial

Kenneth Shawn Setser of Lapeer, Michigan, began stewarding the variety in 2003 from seed he got from his mother, Mary Lou (Stapleton) French of Goodrich, Michigan. Mary told Ken she’d gotten them from an old family friend from Tennessee in the 1980s, near where she grew up in the hills of Paintsville, Kentucky. The old man said the beans had been in his family for over a century and, according to Mary, was very proud of them. Ken thinks he’s not good at gardening, so he finds this bean perfect because it requires little attention. He just plants them, weeds them, and waters them when he thinks they need it. “They grow great with little,” he says. Ken donated this pole bean variety to SSE in 2023.