Bean, beans the wonderful fruit

In a never ending quest to find peace and balance in my daily life, I have hardly found time to breath and sleep never mind write. I have been busy in the past weeks working my two jobs (I kind of cannot wait for the summer to be over) and still finding brief quiet moments to make knit hats, mittens, socks and some aprons that will be up on etsy in a month. I was rewarded on Sunday though when I got home from work and spent some time working in my garden to discover that not only would my blackberries be providing fruit in a few days but my beans would be providing part of my dinner that night.

Working in the garden can be as soothing to me as knitting and sewing unfortunately my strength wavers fast in the sun and so I have to remember to take a break as I work. It is one of those task I remember doing as a young child, helping my mom after my father had tilled the bed. I remembering help to drag the hoses and watering pots across the driveway to water our pretty decent size bed, weeding, and then harvest. I guess that sense of duty is still weighing on me a little since on Sunday I  only wanted to curl up on my couch and sleep but I pushed forward to water my garden since the little rain we got wasn’t enough to water my food.

Much to my pleasure my push was rewarded, I found beans. Beans were always something my family grew. So much my mother’s parents were called G&G Beans by us grandkids. Even at his apartment my grandpa still keeps his beans. Underrated they are beans, coming in all shapes, sized and colors, and Archaeologist have evidence of them being grown for over 7,000 years. In Native American culture the bean is brought by a crow with the corn and pumpkins. Tribes in the Northern parts would plant their corn in mounds on top of the local fish. On the coast line of New England when the herring (alewife) ran up river it was not only a sign to plant the corn but the very fish that would fertilize their food. They then would plant the beans around that and then pumpkins to cover them. It was a tradition that they taught to the first settlers that we call Pilgrims. One book I read even credited the Natives with teaching the English how to cook the beans and I will give credit where it was due but considering there were cook books with cooking recipes for beans already from England and Holland that predate the English’s arrival so that can be tossed out as a thought.

The first harvest of the year

Underrated the bean may be but tasty and vast in types it truly is. They have inspired rhymes and stories, from Jack and the Bean stock to that lovely rhyme "bean, beans the wonderful fruit the more you eat the more you toot," For my family this vegetable has held more meaning and it will often hopefully grace our garden beds for generations to come because after a long day at work on Monday coming home to fresh green beans made a tolerable day not only uplifting but superb.