Green Beans

My husband specializes in growing fruits (peaches, plums, raspberries), and vegetables (green beans, cucumbers and eggplant this year).  We probably will not get any eggplant, but we had a bumper crop of beans and cukes.  I was disappointed a few weeks ago with the beans; we seemed to be at the end of their too short season.

The beans that I was picking were thick and barely edible.  I also noticed white beans in the pod.  Dummy, this is where beans that  vegetarians like me live on come from! 

 I threw a bunch of them into the crock pot with some dried white beans, soaked them and cooked them.  My daughter made a delicious soup with the white beans, vegetable stock, sweet potatoes, sauteed onions, and plum tomatoes.  Some day, perhaps next summer, I would like to make a soup with just the white beans from my garden and compare how they taste with the dried beans.  In this picture, I show a mature bean, opened up to reveal the white beans, and a young green bean, with no white beans yet.  They must grow quickly - for the green beans become inedible in just a few days.

Gardening is like child-rearing

Last night I gave some friends a garden tour.  As I walked, I  become uncomfortable with the state of things.  My garden is a mess!  Granted, it has been hot and humid (sweat was pouring off of my sunglasses as I worked outside yesterday), and I have been working full time, cutting out a lot of time for weeding.  Even the spots that I have been able to keep up look so so at best.

This picture shows a garden full of flaws - the asters in the center front need to be moved forward; the phlox is too dominant; the dianthus in front of the phlox are not blooming; the lavender just looks sad. 

If you can see beyond the flaws, there is tons of potential.  The lavender will grow and its silver-purple foliage will balance nicely with the blue-silver foliage of the festuca on the left.  The veronica on the right will most likely have a longer bloom time in its second year of residency, balancing the phlox.  Taller annuals can be placed in the middle back of the border, giving the border more color.

Raising kids can be like tending to a garden.  You can have a super-neat garden with lots of impatiens and hosta.  There is nothing wrong with that scheme; it can be quite soothing.

You can also think about kids the same way.  Like they were formed from a cookie press.  Once they are out, can walk and talk, you know who they are.  This one is gregarious; this one is serious; this one is an athlete.  The problem for me with this approach is that it ignores the big element of children growing, changing, evolving.  Somebody can be a klutz when they are young, and go on to become a decent tennis player when they are older.  They can work hard and conquer math.  The list goes on and on.

I do not despair when  I see the picture above.  I say to myself  "this doesn't look to good - it will look better next year."  That, for me, is the fun of gardening and the challenge and joy of  raising children to become happy, healthy, responsible adults.