Green beans from Heaven. If you ask me.

Green beans from Heaven. If you ask me.

A few summers into the world of vegetable gardening, I have learned a few things.

One is how little I know.

Another is that I can learn how different plants grow.

And the whole spectacle is miraculous — in spite of my efforts.

 *   *   *

Pole beans.

Vines that wind in and around and produce a million beans.

Or so I thought. For that’s what they did the first year of my garden. Pole beans everywhere. So sick of beans I didn’t even freeze them. For why? There would always be abundance.

Then last summer.

Not a bean.

We had put up the chicken wire fence. There was a huge hedge of vines just like the year before but not one blossom appeared.

I have read since that pole beans like cooler summers and bush beans hot ones. So who’s to say? Certainly not me.

I’m just so happy they appeared this year.

Out picking my first bag full in two summers, it just struck me how amazing God is.

We plant a seed.

The bees and other pollinators come along and do their thing.

And we end up with this.

I was telling my friend Annie about my bean-proving-there-is-a-God revelation.

She scrunched up her nose and looked a little puzzled like she does when she thinks I’m saying one of my silly white girl things.

Annie and I are tight. We met a few years ago when she knocked on my door and asked about my garden. She thinks of me as another daughter and I think of her as a spiritual adviser. But don’t tell her that, she’d just get mad at me thinking that was silly talk again.

So when Annie wasn’t as moved  when I presented her with a sack full of beans — and explained my finding-God-in-the-vines epiphany — I found that a puzzle. Not that she wasn’t thankful to God, she thanks God for everything.

I could just tell that she wasn’t filled with the wonder of it that I was.

Then I realized she grew up with all her brother and sisters tending acres of garden — that’s what fed them year after year.

To her seeing a bean vine produce in the summer was a natural as looking to the west and watching the sun go down every night.

That made me feel better.

I still felt like a had a little church in my bean field yesterday.

How is your garden growing?