Layin' Low

Well, hubby and I gambled last spring by giving up our CSA share in hopes that we'd be pulled off the waiting list for a plot in our community garden.  It paid off!  So, this summer marks our initiation into c...u...l...t...i...v...a...t...i...n...g.  I suppose we have cultivated before.  We dug up our tiny little front lawn three years ago (townhouse) and stuck a bunch of perennials in. It hasn't turned out half bad with some rearranging, pruning and the big... T and E.

That would be "trial and error".  A common phrase, I know, but the weight of it cannot be overstated.  You just cannot set out to grow your own food (or anything for that matter) without being prepared for a lot of T & E.  

So, our humble plot (a parital view of its infancy in May is above) has already blessed us with collard greens, basil (PESTO), a variety of other herbs, green peppers, lots and lots and lots of lettuce, cucumbers and green beans.  (Tomatoes and yellow squash are almost ready).  The weeds are simply ferocious but I am a force to be reckoned with so they have been kept (mostly) at bay.  Anyway, back to the T & E.

So, as I just mentioned, there are green beans.  You will notice that there is 

a trellis  in these photos.  (In the photo to the right the trellis is at the right edge with a couple of bean plants in the foreground and a couple near the other end of the trellis).  We planted the beans near the trellis so they would have an easy time doing their vine-y, trailing thing.  I had visions of reading "Jack and the Beanstalk" to my girls while we sat under our copious  creepers.   As the summer has progressed and the garden has grown more and more voluptuous, I have noticed that my beans are, well, underachievers.  One of the plots next to us literally looked like the Garden of Eden with it's huge leafy, bean vines growing up six feet in the air.  Up... up... up.  Nope.  Not ours.  What's wrong with us???  I put little stakes in next to each plant and lovingly cooed at them while tying lines of string from the stake to the trellis trying to encourage them to grow that direction ("Come, on, little plant, just WRAP AROUND THE DARN STRING AND TRAIL ALREADY!!!!")  

Well, the good news is that the apparent stunted growth of our plants had no bearing on their ability to pump out the pods.  And they are delicious! We have steamed them adding a little Kosher salt at the table and man, are they good!  So, who cares if they don't "perform" like their neighbors?  Not me!  Well, I did care, a little.  So, I was in the garden watering the other night and I casually asked one of my gardening neighbors:

Me:  "What gives with my beans?  I don't know why they won't grow up the trellis!"  

Neighbor:  "Well, they never will".  

Me: "I see." (Well, they definitely won't NOW with a curse like that set on them!)  

Neighbor:  "Those are bush beans.  Bush beans stand on their own and form a kind of shrub.  They get about 1 to 2 feet high.  The kind you're thinking of is pole beans."

Me.  "I see."  (What else do you say when you are caught that ignorant? Just repeat "I see").

So there WAS a reason that my beans were lyin' low!  Lord, have mercy, do I have a lot to learn!