learn about the 2022 kit

WITH THE PLANT A SEED CAMPAIGN, WE CELEBRATE BIODIVERSITY ON FARMS, IN GARDENS AND AT SCHOOL.

Each year, we put together a cast of rare and biodiverse seeds that tell a story. This year, we are celebrating beans! This curated kit includes beans from each of the six regions in the United States with a unique relationship to the land and people there. When you grow beans, you positively impact soils, land use, water use, biodiversity and directly combat climate change.

Our 2022 Plant a Seed campaign opens a door to understand the key concerns of Slow Food USA: climate, health and food justice. We will highlight the issue of food sovereignty, or the independence of humans to produce food outside of oppressive food systems, by providing an opportunity to save the beans grown and connect growers with their local seed libraries.

Join us as we get to know beans!

Each year, we put together a cast of rare and biodiverse seeds that tell a story. This year, we are celebrating beans! This curated kit includes beans from each of the six regions in the United States with a unique relationship to the land and people there. When you grow beans, you positively impact soils, land use, water use, biodiversity and directly combat climate change.

Our 2022 Plant a Seed campaign opens a door to understand the key concerns of Slow Food USA: climate, health and food justice. We will highlight the issue of food sovereignty, or the independence of humans to produce food outside of oppressive food systems, by providing an opportunity to save the beans grown and connect growers with their local seed libraries.

Join us as we get to know beans!

MEET YOUR BEANS

Name: Slow Food Santa Fe Out Loud – Perspectives from the Local Food Community
Start: 2023-04-01T10:00:00-06:00
End: 2023-04-01T10:30:00-06:00
Location: Virtual

Click on each bean below to learn more!

OUR GOALS FOR THIS YEAR'S CAMPAIGN

We’re hoping to make a major impact on health, climate and food justice through connecting the Slow Food USA community to the Plant a Seed campaign this year.

PRESERVE BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Introduce 400 individual gardeners and 350 school and community gardens to new bean varieties.

Connect biodiversity to climate change — when all these beans are planted, we will fixate 112 pounds of nitrogen directly into the soil!

Connect you to local seed libraries, and provide tools and instruction for seed saving and sharing.

Uplift Black and Indigenous growers, seed companies, and stories throughout the campaign.

EDUCATE, INSPIRE AND MOBILIZE PEOPLE

Provide educational materials, toolkits and online events to get you excited about beans, and to learn how beans impact climate, health and justice.

Engage Slow Food chapters to activate the campaign in their local communities.

Mobilize the larger Slow Food network to align around the themes of climate, health and food justice through these beans.

INFLUENCE POLICIES IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS

Introduce key policy makers to how they can make change for the climate through biodiversity and beans.

Promote Meatless Mondays and beans to buyers at key institutions, recommending beans as a delicious and healthy substitute to industrial meat.

About artist donna waterman

Donna’s very first print was a beet, so this partnership with Slow Food came quite naturally! She gets her inspiration from plants, mostly because she’s spent the last decade as a vegetable farmer in both Vermont and New York City. She can currently be found designing custom portraits and business logos and creating one-of-a-kind merchandise and art pieces on pre-owned clothing. Follow along at @bigdstamps and bigdstamps.com.

ARIKARA YELLOW BEAN
MIDWEST

This bean was an important food crop for the Arikara Indian tribe of the Missouri Valley in the midwestern United States. This bean is renowned for its early maturity and drought resistance, allowing it to survive the short growing season of the Northern Plains. It varies in color from neon yellow to buff and is delicious as a tender young green bean as well as a wonderful stew bean as it retains its shape in cooking. This bean was an important food of the Lewis and Clark expedition, sustaining the team in the winter of 1805, eventually leading to its inclusion in the gardens at Monticello. The cultural significance of this bean to the Arikara tribe has been difficult to maintain because of shrinking land access available to the tribe.

cherokee trail of tears bean
Southeast

This gorgeous, prolific and versatile pole bean grows on vigorous vines and is at home as a fresh snap green bean, a shell bean used in salads or as a dry bean used in soups or stews. Traditionally it was grown alongside corn and squash and has been used to grind into a flour. It has a stunning, shiny deep purple to jet-black coloring, with a delicate flavor. This bean requires some support while growing as they like to vine and will take as much trellising as you give them. This bean was shared with Seed Savers Exchange by the late Dr. John Wyche of Hugo, Oklahoma. His Cherokee ancestors carried this bean over the Trail of Tears, the infamous winter death march from Georgia to Oklahoma (1838-39) that left a trail of 4,000 graves.

HANK’S XTRA SPECIAL BAKING BEAN
Northeast

A few years ago, there were only a few pounds of this incredible creamy white bean in existence. Thanks to a unique collaboration across the Hudson Valley, this bean can now be enjoyed by all. Avid gardener Hank Losse’s beans were virtually unknown beyond the annals of small town memory, until Hank’s daughter discovered a stash of her father’s prized beans in a tin at his house after his passing. She donated the last of this local treasure to the Hudson Valley Seed Library, along with recollections of her father’s growing objectives, and some history of its culinary use.

These bush beans are dense and substantial legumes that lend a rich, creamy texture to any dish in which they are employed. Tender inside and boasting ideal structural integrity, they do not break down, nor do they suffer from a tough seed skin.

FOUR CORNERS GOLD BEAN
SOUTHWEST

A southwest Pueblo variety, Four Corners Gold is also known as Zuni Gold and is a rich and creamy culinary treasure, often described as nutty in flavor when used as a dry bean in cooking, though they are also wonderful as a tender green bean. These beans are highly adaptable and drought tolerant with a deep genetic history of growing in the American Southwest and .The Four Corners Gold bean continues to be produced by small farmers and bean enthusiasts in the southwestern United States, however it is relatively unknown to the general public.

SANTA MARIA PINQUITO BEAN
California

The Santa Maria Pinquitos bean comes from Santa Maria, California, where it is known as a classic side dish bean. The bean is small, hearty and pink with a dense and creamy consistency. The Pinquitos bean is a quick-cooking bean that holds its form once heated and is consequently perfect for use in chili and salads. A tiny bean deeply connected to the state of California’s own multicultural heritage, this “little pink” bean is the traditional Santa Maria BBQ bean. Local lore says that this heirloom bean was a staple during the mission era, moving its way up the California coast during the 1800s as it was cultivated in the mission gardens.

ROCKWELL BEAN
NORTHWEST

These gorgeous beans are creamy-white with a mottled cranberry spotting. This gem became favored on Whidbey Island because of its ability to germinate in cool soil, early maturity, flavor, and tendency to hold its shape when cooked. Due to a tragic fire in 2017, the Rockwell Bean stock was almost lost forever. With the support of the local community and chefs returning what little seed they had, a sufficient quantity was revived. We are so lucky to have a special seed stock from farmer Melony Edwards to include in the kit this year.