Old Grandma's Soup Bean

Bush/dry bean. Small, oval white seeds of the white marrow type. Standard flavor and with an unusually glossy seed coat. Shelling (horticultural) beans have a smooth dense texture with a buttery flavor. Straight, green pods become pale yellow at maturity. Plants grow 8-16" tall. White flowers. Mature pods 2-4" long and less than 0.5" wide. Not recommended as a snap bean; pods are tough and fibrous with a strong suture string. Shattering dry pods commonly contain 3-5 seeds per pod. Mid-season maturing when grown in 2014 at Heritage Farm. Donated to SSE by Jane Benner, who received it from her husband's grandmother, Tessie (Brubaker) Hart of East Salem, Pennsylvania. It was grown by Tessie since at least the 1930s and used as a dry bean. Tessie's daughter recalled that as a child, the children would help thresh the beans by stomping on them in a bag to loosen the pods, then they'd sort the good beans from the pods. SSE Accession # 105732