Phaseolus polystachios- thicket bean, wild kidney bean, perennial bean

An interesting little plant that I've been considering growing for a while is this handsome fellow, the thicket bean. A wild cousin of the much more well-known lima bean, thicket beans make seeds that are slightly bigger than a lentil and are known to have relatively low yields. On top of that, the beans are extremely attractive to weevils, to the point that in places with high weevil populations it can be difficult to get any harvest from them. Why would anyone grow them, you may ask?

Despite these drawbacks, thicket beans have a lot of interesting characteristics going for them! They're among the most frost-hardy of the Phaseolus beans, growing natively all over the eastern US and some parts of southern Canada as herbaceous perennials; they're extremely disease resistant, particularly against white mold; and (in my estimation) they have a lot of potential to be bred for yield and bean size. Certain populations of wild beans show evidence of being selected for non-shattering pods, so apparently someone at some point agreed with me! They can also allegedly be hybridized with lima beans, which makes the goal of breeding a productive and hardy perennial Phaseolus even more feasible.

I've recently gotten a packet of seeds from Experimental Farm Network, and am planning on evaluating them to see which ones have the most desirable traits. Is anyone else currently growing them, or has grown them in the past? I'd love to hear about your experiences with them!

They're on my list for this year. I had similar thoughts regarding their breeding potential.

I am in my fourth year of growing them. I had five seeds from Prairie Moon and only one survived the rabbits. It is at the north edge of a patch of sunchokes, with the theory that the un-loved sunchokes will grow to be a trellis.  Year one there were few beans produced and saved, but mishaps in propagation the next year. Year two brought enough seeds from the parent plant, so at the beginning of year three i was planting them along fence lines and near now-permanent trellising posts. And then during year three plant grew HUGE, climbing past the sunchokes and sochan  across the path and cascading outside the garden fence.. And there was also plenty of germination of last year's planted seed. At the end of year three, i had just shy of a half pound of shelled beans from the first plant. This year, the original plant is doing gangbusters. The second year plants in the garden plot near ten foot posts are doing great and have tendrils reaching for more. The ones planted in with the sochan on the shady edge of the garden are back but have not yet run out of sochan to climb. And some of the ones planted along the 8' orchard fence are back at the top of the orchard. I expect that the one orchard fence plant that gets the most sun will be producing a reasonable number of beans this year.

I have poor but slowly improving soil and relatively shady conditions in my yard -- the garden plot has 90' pine woods directly to the east, the orchard fence in question has 90' pine woods directly to the west --  so my yield is probably low compared to what someone else might manage.  I grew Violet's multicolored limas one year and a ten foot row of trellised plants didn't produce much more bean for me than the one bean plant growing in the sunchokes.  It is very nifty to see the beans come up without any effort on my part.

The tiny purple flowers are swarmed with tiny pollinators in the late summer.

I'd be happy to exchange seed this fall with folks who have seed from some source other than Prairie Moon. My beans from my parent plant are solid black and small. There's strong shattering. The beans are tiny, so selecting for size is clearly desirable, but i don't know how much selection i can manage, Someone growing in ideal conditions might get enough set fruit from first year plants that they could actually make selection choices; my rate of choice is going to be much slower.

I guess is should make the beans i have and see if i like the flavor!

Sooo, hmm.

Curious about anyone else's experience with cooking Phaseolus polystachios. I just cooked the first significant harvest i had from the beans last fall. I’d soaked for over 24 hours, changing the water frequently and found it took hours simmering for the beans to soften. And they have a bitter edge. Wondering if people change the water while cooking, although, it seems the bitter is the “skin” of the bean, not the thickened “gravy” around the beans.

I'll note i drink my coffee black and like Fernet Branca so when i say something's bitter, i'm still going to eat it, but i'm not sure others will.

https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Phaseolus+polystachios is not enthusiastic about the edibility.

I wonder -- do i have a bitter plant? Is there a better way to cook them? (Slow cooker, will be used next time, clearly -- i thought they were so small and relatively fresh that they would cook quickly.)

I'm probably going to take these and try them a number of different ways. Probably will up the salt, add more sweetness, and perhaps sour cream or something fatty to balance the bitter note.

've some dehydrated butternut squash, and ponder a soup.  And i've some dehydrated tomatoes from last year.  Figs for sweetness? (I'd already added carrots and molasses.)

Regrets to Allen Ayers for hijacking their post.

After cooking up the scant pound of beans i harvested from my mother plant last year, i froze them in small serving sizes. I'd gotten anxious about the bitterness:  did  that meant the beans were high in phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) and i'd somehow not neutralized it all? Yesterday lunch i ate my first serving and, yup, still bitter. But no distress.

The plant, now in its 4th year i think, takes over a corner of the garden plot. I am almost OK with it because it also an area with sunchokes that i am not crazy about -- but it's a sunny corner, and i'm shade limited.  I've another spot where a descendant is thriving in a sunnier place, and it out performs Matt's wild cherry tomatoes. I'm pretty sure i'll be digging up those plants this winter. I'll see if the progenitor plant can manage at the edge of the woods by the road, and replace it with it's descendant in the garden, until i determine whether its seeds are not particularly bitter.

If someone has good tasting Phaseolus polystachios i'd be delighted to have seed. It's lovely to have a perennial bean that is so vigorous, but less so when eating is a chore.

I'm happy to share seed of this parent plant grown from Prairie Moon stock.

i have lots of these growing wild around my place. i’ve eaten them before and don’t remember them being particularly bitter, but it’s been awhile. i’ll have to cook some up and double-check. i should be able to share seed from my plants if they turn out to be less bitter.

For all other beans, peas, chickpeas etc that I've cooked, adding baking soda to the cooking water makes them soften up much faster. Give it a try next time you cook them. If you add it after they've soaked and started cooking, you may find that it sizzles, and so you keep adding a little more until it stops sizzling on contact.

After the beans have softened to how you like them, you can add an acid to stop them softening any further and to neutralize the baking soda. (Any acid, such as tomatoes, lemon juice or vinegar).

Judielaine Bush wrote:Regrets to Allen Ayers for hijacking their post.

No worries! I've completely neglected this thread so I'm glad you were around to keep it alive. As for the bitterness issue, I've heard that some populations are more bitter than others and that changing the cooking liquid partway through lessens the bitterness, but I don't like the idea of tossing perfectly good bean broth and I can't remember where exactly I heard that so take it with a grain of salt.

The seeds I mentioned in the opening post were all devoured by groundhogs in the seedling stage, unfortunately. This spring, I got another packet from Experimental Farm Network, planted the 4 largest seeds on my parent's property, and guerilla planted some of the smaller seeds around my neighborhood. I've not checked on the guerilla planted seeds for several months, but the 4 on my parent's property are doing quite well despite the neglect I've heaped on them. Currently they're fighting for their lives against an onslaught of both invasive weeds and native wildflowers, putting out quite a few flowers in the process. Only one plant has proper seed pods at this point.

I was about to order these from experimental farm. So helpful to know your experience with them. I’d appreciate any updates, and I’d love a source for seeds that aren’t bitter!!

Like I wrote here I have a bunch of these growing very vigorously in a pot right now. I have two strains, one I got from Oikos Tree Crops, and one from Ebay seller Lupinaster (presumably the one they talk about here.) The latter is from West Virginia apparently. I don't know where the Oikos strain is from. As for bitterness, we'll see. Will report when/if there's enough seeds to try cooking some. Our climate, and especially our long summer days, makes it a bit uncertain whether they will have time to set ripe seeds before first frost. Apparently they're day length sensitive, and Lupinaster's strain apparently starts flowering in the first half of September in Poland at 50 degrees north. Well, they'll probably flower at roughly the same time at our place, even if we're at 64 degrees north (that close to the equinox the day length doesn't differ terribly much with latitude) so if the first frost is late enough, there's some hope.

Good evening friends! How's everyone's holiday so far? Do anybody have any idea about the historic range of the wild kidney? Love to learn more about its previous distribution before human activity occurred years ago. Good night and be safe!

Very happy to say my first planting of Phaseolus polystachios (thicket beans / wild kidney beans) grew really well this past year.  However, as others have mentioned, they are very bitter.  Does anyone have beans without the bitter taste?  I will keep growing them even if I do not eat them because they draw in bumble bees is massive amounts!  Thanks.