Magic Beans

Posted by Emily M. | August 16, 2010 | 17 Comments

Yesterday I went out to our little garden to pick beans for dinner. Our beans this year grow over trellises in a lush, exuberant way, in a way they have never grown before, leaves upon leaves, with vines spilling over and reaching for something else to hold on to. Every time I think I have picked the last ripe bean, I lift a leaf and discover more. I intended to get just a small potful and ended up picking two good-sized bowls. My kids and I sat on the lawn, in the shade of the bean trellises, and snipped them into bite sized pieces. Bean snipping makes a satisfying sound, like a Lego click, only alive.

I am always surprised when my garden yields something. The beans surprised me this year, because every other year when I’ve planted beans they got eaten by bugs before they had a chance to grow. This year I planted two packages of seeds, inside my garden beds and also in the dirt along the edge. I planted beans along my outside fence too, even though I knew they would be overshadowed by the vines that grow there.

I’ve never really liked fresh beans. I hate the way they squeak against my teeth, and I hate their rubbery texture. But beans had never grown in my garden before, so I wasn’t worried.

Except this year, they actually did. The picking I did yesterday was the third picking, and there are still more beans out there, thin curled ones waiting to plump up, white flowers waiting to ripen into fruit. I have discovered that if I overcook beans, so they are tender and nonsqueaky, I don’t dislike them so much, so I’ve cooked and frozen them in anticipation of a beanless winter. But I am still baffled by abundance. Why is it that some plants grow wildly, and the tomatoes I nursed through late frosts have a few anemic fruit, but nothing like the swollen baskets I picked last year?

I’m sure there are gardening answers for my questions, the first one being that my little garden is an afterthought, and I don’t invest the time in it that I could. If I were out there every day, I would know the plants better. I would see what’s been eating my cabbage, I would notice that the pumpkin vine needed to be trained back inside the fence. I know the garden would be better if I gave it more.

But I’m still astonished by what it yields in spite of my benign neglect, in spite of the way I plant the seeds, turn on the automatic watering system, and then forget about them. Not enough to live through a winter, but enough to enjoy now, and enough to bring the taste of August to my January dinners.

How’s your garden this summer? How does random abundance surprise you? What in your life yields more than you imagined it would?

Category: Daily Special

Comments

17 Responses to “Magic Beans”

Laurel C.
August 16th, 2010 @ 12:26 pm

I hope this is not a metaphor for my life, but right now my garden is anemic, pale, and straggly due to two months of straight rain and no sunlight. Everyone warned me when I moved here, “Nothing grows in Colorado.” I see now that they were right, but I planted a garden anyway. Oh! Oh! This is making my metaphor juices flow. Gotta go… gotta go write an essay about this!
Nancy R.
August 16th, 2010 @ 12:35 pm

My garden has also been a disaster. I had a wonderful crop of peas early in the summer and then everything died or was stunted or just didn’t produce… after receiving a lot of tender loving care.
Christine
August 16th, 2010 @ 12:55 pm

I have been trying the “square foot” garden with mixed results. It was fantastic yesterday though to serve my family tomatoes and fried zucchini with dinner and a delicious zucchini cake for dessert. Something deeply satisfying about growing something that you actually eat! I have a terrific recipe for “Dilly Beans” if you would like it…if you are interested in canning at all, it is extremely easy and an interesting way to enjoy green beans later.
FoxyJ
August 16th, 2010 @ 1:10 pm

This is our first year planting a garden and we’ve also been surprised by some of the results. Our tomatoes are taking over and the sunflowers we planted for the kids are humungous. Last year my little boy wanted a pumpkin plant and it didn’t work at all. This year we planted one seed and it has taken over the garden. I’ve never seen a pumpkin plant that is so monstrous.

As far as benign neglect, I’ve always been surprised by my children’s ability to learn things like the alphabet and reading without me doing much to encourage them. A package of alphabet magnets for the fridge costs a dollar and is a great teaching tool!
Emily M.
August 16th, 2010 @ 1:12 pm

Laurel, that sounds like a great beginning to an essay.

Nancy, that is why I am always surprised when something grows well, because I’ve had garden years like that when so little grows.

Christine, I like the square foot raised beds, but I think I mixed up the “Mel’s Mix” stuff he talks about with the wrong proportions or something, because it doesn’t hold on to water very well, and I think the ph may be off too. That’s my totally unscientific assessment; I have never actually tested it.

I hardly ever can. That is what I use my freezer for. But go ahead and post it if you wouldn’t mind because I bet there are other people who do can and would like the recipe.
Emily M.
August 16th, 2010 @ 1:14 pm

Foxy J, I love sunflowers. We planted one year that was left over from a school project and it was lots of fun to watch it grow to be enormous.

I need to dig out my alphabet magnets for my four year old… the benign neglect worked with my two older kids and reading, but I think he will need more hands on care.
Rosalyn
August 16th, 2010 @ 1:19 pm

Last summer, we moved into a new (to us) home and were surprised to find our backyard overrun with plum trees–we had so many plums that we couldn’t begin to pick them all, and many of them fell to the ground and rotted. This spring, remembering last summer’s mistake, we severely trimmed our trees. And this summer? Not a single plum. Not one. (Part of that is probably due to the unseasonably cold spring). Maybe benign neglect would have worked better!
Rose
August 16th, 2010 @ 2:01 pm

The gardens doing ok. I always manage to get tons of peppers, but have a hard time getting tomatoes. Of course part of the reason for that is that my boys like to pick my green tomatoes and hit them with baseball bats…..
Jill Shelley
August 16th, 2010 @ 2:10 pm

This post reminds me of my neighbor years ago. She decided to plant a very small garden outside her back porch. She was SO excited that a week or so after she planted the seeds she just could not wait to see what was going on underneath the dirt…so she dug little holes everywhere. She called me over one day so I could see the little green wormy looking branches growing under the soil. She did this nearly every day. So naturally nothing ever grew ABOVE the soil and all her pre-plants died. But I will never ever forget her enthusiasm for life!
Ana
August 16th, 2010 @ 2:46 pm

I have a garden. And a new baby. My baby is thriving . . . enough said.
Laurie
August 16th, 2010 @ 2:52 pm

Our tomato plants grew over 6 feet tall, but only yielded 2 tomatoes. However, my one cherry tomato plant is overloaded with tiny tomatoes, so that is ok with me. We have gotten quite a few cucumbers, but my mammoth zucchini plant only grew 3 very small squash. On the other hand, the butternut squash has almost taken over the entire yard, and has even grown up the tomato cages and I am going to have a ton of that kind of squash in my freezer this year. The beans and the peas grew some, but not very well. I don’t know if any of this is due to my neglect, I have had a rough pregnancy this year, and have not done a good job of tending the garden at all, but I too am astounded at the way certain plants grow and produce, and others do not. I don’t get it at all. Looks like a good research topic for this winter!
Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
August 16th, 2010 @ 5:53 pm

I love butternut squash, but it looks like we won’t have very many this year.

Like you, Emily, I hate squeeky beans, partly (I suspect) because I grew up eating canned beans, and canned beans are WAY overcooked (my dad was a school teacher, and I never saw fresh beans until I married my husband who comes from a gardening family.

What I do is either snap the beans into tiny chunks (less than 1 inch long) if they are going to be steamed, or I roast them.

To roast them, toss them in a little olive oil and season with seasoning salt and roast in a pan in a 400-degree oven, stirring every 10 minutes until they are tender. YUM-YUM!!
Emily M.
August 16th, 2010 @ 9:58 pm

Rosalyn, that’s how I feel about my tomatoes! I tried to save them, and I planted new ones to replace the ones that the frost killed, and yet there is no possible way I will recoup my tomato plant investment this year. The beans, though, are thriving.

Rose, ha! Do they use a giant zucchini for a bat?

Jill, I love the image of your neighbor digging up plants to inspect their roots. Lovely.

Ana, anyone who has a baby in the summertime automatically gets a pass when it comes to gardening and housework and anything else besides having a baby.

Laurie, I love butternut squash! I have not ever grown it successfully. It got powdery mildew when I tried. Pregnant women get a pass on the garden tending, too.

Kathleen, my next batch of beans will be roasted just like that. It sounds delicious!
Michelle (the other one)
August 17th, 2010 @ 12:53 am

Sadly, the garden was the thing that ended up on my ‘this may push me over the edge’ list, so we have nothing. But we are enjoying the abundance of our neighbors’ peach tree and their kindness in sharing.

I can hear the Lego-like, alive snap in my mind — loved how you invited me onto your lawn with your writing.
Selwyn aka Kellie
August 17th, 2010 @ 2:38 am

Oh, how I long for summer! I’d even be happy with a preview of spring, but winter is still determined to overstay its welcome here… For that reason, I loved the summer leaking out of your post Emily!

As for what in my life surprises me with its abundance, at the moment it’s my ability to keep on going, even when I don’t want to. I often get to a point where I think “Alright, that’s it, I’m officially empty, can’t go any further”… and I find myself still going forward. Tied into that (welded, really) is knowing my Father in Heaven knows what I’m going through, and Christ knows exactly what I’m feeling. That abundance blows my mind every time I think of it.

EVERY time.
michelle
August 17th, 2010 @ 1:37 pm

I’ll do my name with a little m from now on to distinguish me from other Michelles.
mormonhermitmom
August 17th, 2010 @ 5:25 pm

This is the first time in over five years that I’ve had space/time to put in a garden. A cold, wet spring killed off the apples, but I had some peas in June. I planted what the kids wanted to eat and I didn’t expect much because the property has been neglected for a long time before we rented it. I’m learning from my many mistakes. I’m surprised that the zucchini hasn’t been abundant. Who doesn’t get tons of zucchini? We managed some green beans for one dinner. I think what will be abundant this year are the pumpkins. (They are taking over the yard, so I hope I get more than a few jack o lanterns this fall.)