Showing posts with label "pole beans". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "pole beans". Show all posts

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Poppies, Patience and Pole Beans


The onions are harvested and Ed has cleared the weeds from the garden bed. He left the flowering poppy that he knows I love. It will stand among the buckwheat cover crop that  will be planted here. It's a good chance to get a look at Ed's beautifully prepared garden bed and the straight stone paths on either side.


This year we decided to plant  pole beans for our green beans. Ed made  pole teepees especially for these beans to climb. We planned  that  they would climb up and thus would receive better air circulation  and be easier to pick.  So far these beans are unruly and stubborn. They want to climb the fence around the garden bed. That's not what the fence is there for. It is to keep out the deer so that we might actually get to harvest our green beans.  If the fence cannot be removed, we have no access to the crop.


Ed is stubborn too. He is very carefully unwinding the errant vines and tenderly placing them on the poles. This takes a very gentle hand. One has to be sure to wrap the vine around the pole in the  direction preferred by the beans or everything just unwinds. This process must be done when the beans are dry and is best done when in a serene mood. I hope the bean vines get the idea soon. Patience is a virtue to be cultivated  in the garden but enough is enough.