(Phaseolus vulgaris); Heirloom; Pole bean; a Withee & Wanigan Bean Collection variety; Dual use: shelly and dry; Minimum 20 seeds
I am very excited to offer these amazing beans. I am even more excited to share the pictures courtesy of Seed Savers Exchange with permission of Stub's daughter Jane Coffey.
A cranberry bean that excels as a shelly and dry bean, Stub's Mammoth Scipios is indeed large seeded. Pink flowers on vigorous vines give way to flat, slightly curved pods ranging from 6-9 inches. Pods have long beaks earning them a special place in my heart - I love me some beaky beans!
Now on to their story!
The namesake of Salem Connecticut's Edwin Stubs Coffey these wonderful pole beans joined Withee & the Wanigan Associates' bean collection in the mid-1970s. Serving in WWII, Edwin met his wife Magel. After the war in 1945 the couple moved to Edwin's family home in Connecticut where his father had maintained a well-established garden that included these beans. Edwin inherited his father's garden and the beans, growing them and saving their seed every season in the same family garden. In Edwin and Magel always enjoyed the beans as shellies.
Stub's Mammoth Scipios beans entered the seed saving community in 1981, as part of the Withee & the Wanigan Associates' bean collection. Why'd they make it to our gardens when they aren't associated with the Great Lakes Region? Well, they are beaky! They are mammoth dry beans. I grew up in Connecticut and still have family there. And I absolutely love their story!
