Phaseolus vulgaris
Origin: Mesoamerica via North American Indigenous Peoples
Improvement status: Cultivar
Seeds per packet: ~40
Germination tested 11/2025: 93%
Life cycle: Annual
'Rattlesnake' bean is a lovely purple-striped romano-type green-bean, commonly eaten fresh, cooked, or pickled. The pretty seeds can also be used fresh as shelly beans or later as dry beans. The precise origins of this variety seem to be lost to history, but it is a widespread type of Indigenous pole bean with a history of use among at least Pueblo, Cherokee, & Haudenosaunee peoples, based on our research, and no doubt many others (given the distance between the homelands of each of those peoples). If you're familiar with the Italian 'Borlotti' bean, you can use dried or fresh 'Rattlesnake' beans for all of the same purposes, but you can also use the pods like any romano-type flat green-bean.
This seed comes from our friends Cody Egan and Dylan Bruce of Driftless Seed Supply in Wisconsin.
GROWING TIPS: Direct-sow once the soil has warmed in spring, around the same time you would plant sweetcorn. Plant seeds one inch deep. Provide a good trellis for this climber.
