Fremont Bean Update

Time for a Fremont Bean update! This is my 3rd year growing these unusually large beans in my garden.

 
I purchased them from Liberty Heights Fresh, and instead of eating them (although they are quite tasty) I decided to plant them.

The story is that they were preserved in an archaeological cave in Southwestern Utah and were 800 years old.

I don’t believe they were hundreds of years old when found. Culinary beans are selected for their ease of germination, a trade-off at the cost of the long-term dormancy and storage life. Typical of agricultural seeds.

I have previous posts about my skepticism of their origin story. I have no proof these beans are, or are not, tied Utah's history, but it's too interesting a possibility to ignore. Plus they are fun to grow!

For now, a simple update of a handful of Fremont Beans that I planted this year. They are doing well and are starting to flower. The red flowers are the dominant color, but it looks like I have white flowers too.

A brief history of Fremont Beans in my garden

• 2024: Experimental planting and I put them in a corner of the garden after everything else had been planted. Decent location, but not great. They did pretty well and they succeeded in showing that they could germinate from the bag I purchased.

• 2025: I put in a poor area of the garden with dryer soil and a little more clay than the rest of the garden. I wondered how they would do in a poor environment… were they suited for harsh desert conditions. The beans germinated but did not grow very tall or produce many flowers; also a squirrel dug up several of them before they sprouted.

• 2026: I put them in a very good area of the garden. Good soil. And watered well. So far, they are doing great.