Riggins Stick Pole Green Bean

68 days (100 to dry stage) — 'Riggins' Stick' pole-type bean vines are prolific, productive, and can reach ten feet or more in height. The pods are harvested at the three to five inch stage when they are nearly stringless, before the seeds begin to develop, and enjoyed for their old-timey, green bean flavor. After the pods fill out, the beans can be used at the green shelly bean stage, or allowed to dry on the plants and used for dry beans.

Make no mistake ... this is not a modern, stringless variety with marginal flavor. 'Riggins' Stick' is a classic, "string bean." If you are too young to remember your mother or grandmother sitting and snapping a bucket of beans before cooking them, you should know that the extra step of "de-stringing" the pods is well worth the effort and rewarded with flavor that store bought beans (or modern varieties) just don't deliver. Refer to the photos in the slide show above by scrolling to the right.

Sent to us in 2002 by Mark Chappel of Georgia who told us that his mother's family from Kentucky, the Riggins, had handed down these beans since before the Civil War. The family simply called them "Stick Beans," in reference to the fact that old tobacco sticks were used as support for the heavy vines to climb on. Very rare and in limited quantity. Each packet contains one ounce, which is approximately 60 seeds.