Read by Michael Flamel

I am a bean gardener. Not just any bean gardener, mind you—I am one because I love to eat beans. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing big glass jars full of dried beans in the pantry. Colorful, multi-colorful actually, those jars say to me, “We are here to help you and yours get through the Winter.” As the levels in the jars drop over the months, they also tell me that Spring is on the way.

Perhaps most importantly, I am a bean gardener because I’m not the world’s best gardener, and beans are easy to grow. Growing beans isn’t my only passion in life, but I do love those green vines just the same. What could possibly say “country Summer” more than a rustic tripod of bean poles, cut from hickory limbs, covered with lush green climbing bean vines? You look at those green teepees and see many good meals ahead, the bounty of your land, and your grandmother picking beans into her apron. The bean poles are a classic and intrinsic part of Summer life.

Beans are as variable and colorful as the people of the world. I started with pole beans and mostly stick with them to this day. Initially, I wanted to see those lush green teepees of bean and hickory in my garden to remind me of the old days. As the bean patch expanded, I repurposed a rusty old woven wire fence from our goose pasture to make a trellis that can stretch for as long as my bean ambition might take me.

My bean patch is modest in size. Henry David Thoreau, perhaps the most famous of bean gardeners, described his bean patch this way: “…my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted…” Wow. Sorry, that is a bit much for me. I told you I’m not a good gardener, and I also tend to be a lazy gardener, preferring to keep dirt scratching as a passion, not an obsession. So, my rows are much shorter than the Walden scribe’s apparently endless rows of beans.

Beans are easy in all regards—no fancy husbandry required for either growing or cooking them. Inoculation before planting seems to increase the yield a bit, but it’s not terribly important. Other than that, our small-farm bean industry involves tilling the ground, setting up the trellises and bean poles, planting the beans, and then watching them grow. Pretty simple.

The beauty of the bean patch, beyond the eating, is the harvesting. I usually wait until my beans are dry because I like to store them in those big glass jars, so the harvesting process must wait until late Summer, and at that point, it becomes a near-daily adventure. Saying that something is Zen-like is an overplayed phrase, but overplayed or not, the shelling of dried beans is just that—Zen-like. There you sit on a wooden stool as the sun descends toward the mountains in the west on a mild August evening. Reach for a dried pod among the vines, crack it open, scrape out the beans, oops, dropped two in the dirt, pick them up and drop them with a dull thump into the plastic bucket. Repeat.

There are mottled brown rattlesnake beans, purple and magenta scarlet runners, and my favorite, plain pale white willow leaf, a bean so sweet it doesn’t call for brown sugar or molasses to make it good. In the bush bean section, there are Jacobs cattle, red-and-white classics that add real color to the Winter bean jar. More red and white from the Hidatsa Shield, and black-and-white Calypso round out the exotics. At times, it becomes a rainbow in a bucket.

Even though the pods are dry and ready for harvest, some of the vines still bear flowers late in the Summer, so I share the bean rows with my wife Kristie’s bees, assorted butterflies, little gnat-looking pollinators, and hummingbirds. For whatever reason, the hummers seem amazingly tame up there among the beans, flying rather close to me, even hovering in front of my face. Or perhaps they are just telling me I should use more sunscreen on my red nose.

My 17-year-old cat, Ellwood, wanders up and flops in the grass. He gets as close as he can to where I am picking but stays on the other side of the fence. Ellwood is a smart guy who learned long ago that the woven fabric fence has an electric bite. So, he contents himself to lay in the warm grass, staring off at the westering sun with a classic squinty-eyed cat look.

A scarlet tanager might sound off briefly from the wood line, but it is getting a bit late in the year for much of that. Mostly you hear the mockingbirds down in the cedars, perhaps a flock of Canadian geese in the distance as they move from wherever to wherever. Then there are the beans, always the beans, and the peace of mind that comes from having an empty mind. Just sitting and shelling and listening for a long time. It takes a whole bunch of bean pods and a long length of bean rows to fill a gallon jar with dried beans.

This activity can extend over several weeks as the different bean varieties mature and dry at different rates. By the time it is all over, I swear I have a calmer heart rate and lower blood pressure to go along with all the dried beans. Picking and shelling beans is something that cannot be done in a hurry. It is a rare activity that keeps the hands slightly busy, the senses idling, and the mind at ease. In our electric world of digital noise and motion, taking the time to shell beans in the quiet garden is a healthy throwback. During the pandemic Summer, my time amongst the beans became even more important. It became a place to escape the world of shutdowns, rolling metrics, telework, virtual classrooms, daily averages, general fear, and politics.

Sometimes, earlier in the year, the harvesting of beans becomes a fight with the elements. Bush beans, in particular, that I want to harvest for a fresh pot of beans and potatoes, can bring me out in the heat of the day. There will be a warning of strong thunderstorms in the forecast, and I want to get a bucket or two picked before the hard rain splashes mud up on the bean pods and complicates the cleaning process.

So, I carry my stool and bucket up to the garden in the heat and stifling humidity of the afternoon and sit there with a straw hat pulled low, back to the sun, and get the job done. These sessions are quiet—the birds finding what shade they can elsewhere. Ellwood says he is not going out in that mess and is gently snoring on the bed in the cool house. So, it is the beans and me, but this time with the additional companion of the blistering sun.

It beats on the shoulders, stabbing heat through the arms of the light cotton shirt I wear. Sweat leaks out from under the brim of the straw hat and runs down the middle of my back. Difficult as this is, it does awaken a connection with the moment. The fierce energy of the Summer Sun has given us this bounty—the beans, corn, tomatoes, the grass on the ground, and the leaves on the trees. It will give you a sunburn too, but if you are careful in what you do, this potentially dangerous afternoon companion can be enjoyable to experience, at least in small doses.

And of course, in the end, you have those buckets of beans and pods to get ready for dinner. It is all good.

My bean patch holds an additional treasure, something that was totally unexpected. One early morning while hoeing, I noticed a brightly light shining between the rising sun and me. Really bright, like someone had turned on a flashlight and dropped it to the ground. Walking over, I found a beautiful clear crystal, a quartz crystal I guess, looking almost like a diamond with the sharp planes and angles—a genuine treasure.

I really should know more about those handsome little rocks. I had a very good geology professor in college, whom I am sure explained such things at some point, but that was a long time ago. Now I am content to be finding these gems in the bean patch, usually several a summer, and have a collection of them lined up along the front window of our living room, catching the sun and brightening the day.

When our son was still at home, I used those crystals as an incentive to help hoe the beans. “Come on, boy,” I’d say. “Let’s grab a hoe and go up to look for some diamonds.” It worked on the youngster, and there is a similar collection of crystals on the windowsill of the room that was once his bedroom.

At the end of the pandemic Summer, I was putting the bean patch to bed for the year. All the harvesting was over, we had eaten beans as we wished, froze some, and there was a gallon and a half of dried beans adorning the shelf in the kitchen.

I had spent the evening taking down the rusty fence trellis, gathering up the bean poles, and pulling a few dried pumpkin vines. Taking one last look back at the garden, back at Summer if you will, I saw a bright light shining in the upper end, between the sun and me. There on the surface of the ground lay the largest crystal ever, large as a hen egg, as clear as a mountain stream with sharp angles and planes inside and out. Beautiful, and it had apparently spent the Summer hiding under a pumpkin leaf.

I picked it up, wet my finger, and wiped off some of the dirt so as to better admire the beauty. Then I slid the crystal into the pocket of my jeans and headed for the house, headed for Winter. I am a bean gardener, and on occasion, a gem finder, and I have all Winter to admire what has come out of the ground. ❖

About the Author: David Long is a passionate gardener and storyteller who finds joy in the simple pleasures of life. When he’s not tending to his modest bean patch or discovering hidden gems in the soil, he enjoys sharing his experiences with others. David’s love for gardening and nature is deeply rooted in his childhood memories and continues to thrive in his rural homestead. He lives with his wife Kristie, their 17-year-old cat Ellwood, and a myriad of garden visitors.