Beans

It is mid-September and today I picked our first beans. Unheard of! Usually I'm picking beans like a mad-woman from July on and can hardly keep up with the production from a few feet of plants. Not this year. This year I planted green beans and lima beans - we like the shelling kind of beans. I made three successive plantings from June through July, expecting a continuous supply all summer and enough to freeze.

Lest I am getting repetitive, I shall skip over the horrible growing conditions of this summer because you've heard me rant about them already. Suffice to say, no beans this summer till today, and September 18 is barely summer, really. It's been cool and we lit our first woodstove fire last night. But, beans there were. I picked enough for dinner of both varieties. Shelling a few lima pods produced about a cup of the most luscious beans - white with red splotches. The pods are fuzzy and definitely not palatable but the beans inside are delectable. Simply steamed together the string beans and shell beans were delicious - no butter, no salt, just plain and yummy. I hope we don't get a frost before I have chance to harvest more. I can't cover them to protect the plants because they're 12-14 feet high on poles!

Everything comes to she who waits!