Plant-based proteins from Canadian Heritage Beans
Edible legumes such as beans and peas are a reliable source of high quality protein. Food self-sufficiency and sustainablility are vital during this time of highly varying climate and weather extremes. Beans can be an important contribution to climate resilient diets and are easily grown across Canada.
Heritage Bean Varieties
Bean diversity, like that of potatoes, is great and much of it is maintained by backyard gardeners and small-scale growers in Canada and traditional farmers around the world.
Explore the amazing varieties of beans grown in Canada. We regularly add descriptions of our favourite varieties here, with tips on how to grow and use them.
Good Mother Stallard: Beautiful and Bountiful
Pictures and words on websites are great for attracting attention and providing a bit of guidance to the choice of varieties. Perusing the well-known and highly reliable Rancho Gordo’s website (https://www.ranchogordo.com/collections/heirloom-beans ) from...
Annie Jackson Pole Bean: astounding yields
Richard J. Hebda and Tina Davies of Emmerdale Eden Farm There are so many bean varieties available from around the world, how does one choose what to grow? One criterion has to be the dry seed yield of the variety. Emmerdale Eden Farm of Summerside, Prince...
Marvellous Mayocoba: Many names, Many uses
Community markets are a great place to obtain interesting varieties of beans. My sister, Lucy Hebda, on a visit to Sayulita in Nayarit western Mexico, picked up a few seeds of a pretty yellowish bean called ‘Frijol de Peru’ and brought it for me to grow. According to...
Yellow Eye: Attractive but Diverse
Sometimes the common name of a plant variety covers too much territory! The colloquial name of this common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) describes its key characteristic, a yellowish eye or variation thereof around the scar. This feature results in an attractive seed but...
Early Pinkies: Pretty and Productive
Richard Hebda and Royann Petrell (Steller Raven Ecological Farm) Bean seeds come in many colours and patterns. Many of us have jars and bags of beans stowed away for years in a dark corner, not so much for their food value but for their natural artistic merit. The...
Beka: Golden Brown Bean
Richard Hebda Our Heritage Bean Project searches for early varieties widely adapted to northern climates especially in Canada. The variety Beka with its beautiful golden-brown seeds appeared as a likely candidate on several seed websites. One colourful source “A Bean...
Tanya’s Pink Pod: A British Columbia Island Original
Richard Hebda and Dan Jason New bean varieties must arise somewhere. There are of course intentional crosses to improve characteristics such as productivity and disease resistance. Historically however bean varieties have arisen either by mutation of a common variety...
Drew’s Dandy Delivers!
In a previous article I described the characteristics of an early prairie bush bean called Drew’s Dandy and its value for dry beans (see https://heritagepotato.ca/heritage-beans/drews-dandy/ on this website). Drew’s Dandy is a common bean, Phaesolus vulgaris. This...
Frosty Beans: Unexpected extremes in a mild climate
Climate change is causing problems on our farms… droughts, floods, heat domes, fires, pests. 2023 is projected to be the first year that global mean surface temperatures exceed 1.5 C of warming. It may be getting warmer overall, but the transition to warmer conditions...
Blue Jay: Discovery in the Bean Patch
Few heritage beans receive much media attention, however the attractively coloured and named Blue Jay recently came to national notice through an article on in Canada’s Globe and Mail by Erin Anderssen...