Buckeye Bush (ish) Dry Bean

Phaseolus vulgaris

The small seeded yellow bean has a wonderful, bold creamy flavor.  Buckeye is not quite a bush bean but not at all a pole bean.  The plants get 3-4 feet tall so some staking is preferred but not required.  I stake them here in the Northwest to avoid contact with wet soil because they will be heavy with beans and fall onto the ground by September when it’s harvest time. 

These were originally introduced to me as Indian Woman beans.  The beans are wonderful but this name felt disrespectful.  Too broad, too much potential to be a racist stereotype, it felt bad.  My friend and I researched the origins of this bean and the corrosponding name and found that a popular bean company was cited on google to have changed the name from Indian Woman, also know as Yellow Indian Woman,  to Buckeye.  I don't know how or why or who changed the name.  And Buckeye?  Another quick google tells me that Buckeye is the common name of a tree or shrub Aesculus glabra that grows in the Midwest.  Ohio is the Buckeye state and the tree is the State Tree as well as the mascot of the Ohio State football team.  My friend told me the beans came from Montana.  

This is all just to say that names are important. Western white supremacist colonial culture and the people in power within those systems have erased, redefined, and reduced the cultural context and cultural origin of many if not most of our seeds and food crops.  This bean, the confusion around the name and racist inuendo of the name it came to me with is an example of this erasure.  I offer it in the deepest respect to their cultural keepers and I will do more and continue to learn about this wonderful food crop.    

Growing Dry Beans

Plant when soil has warmed in Early May.  Water weekly through mid August then stop so the plants begin to dry down.  Harvest the pods when plants are brown and crispy and the beans inside are dry enough to not leave an indentation with your thumbnail. Enjoy threshing with friends and family!  It’s hard to resist a bowl full of bean pods waiting to be opened.  

80 days to maturity

Packet contains ~ 60 seeds