The beans post
I learned some new things about gardening due to neglecting it for 3 months; most of it is related to beans. I noticed that people were hasty to harvest their dry beans as soon as it started raining; I supposed it was bad for dry beans to be in a lot of rain, they might rot or something. I got to harvest mine way late, so I found out; what actually happens when you leave your dry beans outside after summer, and it rains a whole lot, and then a whole lot more?
The answer: They sprout. And I don't mean they fall down to the ground and start growing new plants, they sprout even while they're still hanging off of the plant! Just look at these:
Still in their pod and sprouting!
This was a lot of fun to find out; I'm not upset by this, as it's not the majority that sprouted, and I can simply eat them anyway, sprouted food is healthy! Here's all of those who sprouted, ready to be cooked:
And they tasted only slightly different than the other dry beans, they were great to eat!
The rest of my beans have happily cross-pollinated, now they're all possible sizes and colors and I could not be happier about that. Looking at the colorful bean collection makes me feel like my life is happy, enriched, filled with wonder and variety. Look at these:
Some of the beans I was picking up were in the big, still-green pods; that meant they're unripe, but we weren't getting any sun, and they wouldn't get to ripen more, so I harvested them anyway. Upon opening them at home later, I was greeted with the most gorgeous beans I've ever seen in my life. I've been entranced. Look at this:
If I told you these were magic beans and tried to trade them to you in a small village's farmer's market for something valuable, would you not take my word for it? They're the colors of the universe, light blue and purple and some even have slight brushes of color on them like they're painted. I've been staring at these lovingly for 2 days, and then I had to cook them, because they're unripe and can't really be stored as long as the dry beans can. I made them into a white soup, together with potatoes and chive infusion. They don't completely lose their color in a soup either! They just get a bit more grey:
These are only this pretty because I got to see them in the middle of ripening, they would have turned fully dark-blue or dark-purple if completely ripe and dry. I have a few seeds for these left, so I'm going to try and get them again, the experience of gorgeous beans is now going to be expected in my every gardening year!
