Bean Doing Okay?

Yup.  Bean doing great!  

More than several years ago, I asked my mom why she never grew green beans in the small patch of garden out behind our house where she would throw a couple of seeds and grow the biggest, tastiest tomatoes.   Her response was, "You kids never liked them."  (As an adult, fresh green {string} beans have become one of my favorite vegetables.)  Her response caused me to reflect..  As a young girl, I remember sitting on the neighbors' front porch with my sister and their younger set of twin girls, with big bowls (similar to the picture below) of fresh green beans between us, talking and laughing, all while cleaning and snapping green beans. The older set of  twins and their mom had picked the beans earlier and "our job" was to get them ready for pressure canning for winter meals.  Our ulterior was obvious, my sister and I helped the twins with their chores so the four of us could 'goof off' together.  Win/Win

Maybe it's just me, but, I could NOT recall ever eating any cooked, fresh green beans.  Oh snap! Light bulb ON.  Of course, we ate green beans - but they were store bought, canned ones, that were then boiled for another obligatory 15 minutes. (Frozen beans were too expensive.)  So, what ended up on our plate was pretty much mush.  No wonder we (I for sure)  didn't like them.  It was the mushy, flavorless, texture!  Ugh!   Don't get me wrong, my parents did the best they could with what they had and at least we had food.  And I did try to eat a spoonful or two, each with a bite of potato.  My point is that today the vegetables I eat and love have more flavor than the ones I grew up eating … asparagus is another one that tastes different fresh rather than canned and boiled the required 15 minutes!  

Lesson:  Try a vegetable that you didn't like when you were a kid - you might be surprised.    
 

3.5 pounds of Blue Lake Pole Beans, straight out of the garden.  Half were cleaned, snapped and put in a crockpot on top of a layer of bacon.   Made a great meal after a hard day's work.  After cooking for three hours ... not mushy.  

The extra table set up to accommodate the winter squashes, tomatoes and eggplant.  

Fresh sweet corn coming soon.  

Make it a great day!