Piekny Jas runner bean

(Phaseolus coccineus)

Pole, 10-14’ tall.  Enormous white seeds – 65 beans per cup! Despite their size, they cook quickly, have a smooth texture and are delicious — mild and mealy, ideal in soup or sauces. They are also good as shelly beans, when the seeds are full-sized but the pods are still yellow or light green; cook like dry beans without the need to soak. On the day after killing frost, we harvest everything that didn’t quite mature and make lots of soup.  Big white-flowered vines need sturdy trellising.  Our beans are descendants of the Fasola Piękny Jaś z Doliny Dunajca, runner beans grown in the Dujanec river valley in southern Poland which are boarded in the Slow Food Ark of Taste; we shorten the name to indicate that ours are grown in Canada, not Poland. Also called ‘Handsome Johnny’ or ‘Beautiful Johnny’ — translations of the Polish name. 115 days to maturity.