Be Kind to the Beans

We've had an interesting time this summer, both in keeping ourselves fed, bills paid, etc. The most interesting part is that we've been so blessed and so fortunate in the food department. The nearby community garden we've become involved with has provided us with nearly enough beans to get us through the upcoming winter months. We've canned many quarts of beans from that community garden, even though most of the harvesting happened when the beans were past their first flush of production. Fortunately the garden people waited and did not till over the beans as they'd proposed doing, for now they seem to be gearing up for a second production run.

The only trouble we've had lately has been that people are not careful when they go through the bean patch. They seem to think that it doesn't matter how rough they are with the bean bushes, and often they end up pulling up the entire bush, or breaking off so many branches when they go for the green beans that the poor plant ends up nearly dead afterward. It's a shame that people aren't better educated about where their food comes from or even in the simple concept that if you want a plant to produce more food for you over the course of a growing season, it's important to make sure you don't kill the plant the first time you harvest from it. It's frustrating to go along a row and see the swath of devastation someone else cut in their eagerness to get at a few fresh beans for their dinner. From what I've heard from others this year, many people don't have much of an idea how to grow their own vegetables, so they go by trial and error, as if this were a new technology they're learning. And many don't have any more idea of how to preserve their harvest than simply to stick food in freezer bags and throw them into the freezer, when often freezer space is at a premium for most folks. The few lucky ones, like the Huz and I, grew up with parents or grandparents who grew and canned their own vegetables. The rest are pretty clueless, I'm sorry to say.