Category Archives: Farm fantasies

Magic beans

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“Why, the beans his mother had thrown out of the window into the garden, had sprung up into a big beanstalk which went up and up and up till it reached the sky. So the man spoke truth after all.” – Jack and the Beanstalk, Joseph Jacobs

I picked up a lot of beans at Seedy Saturday – so many, in fact, that I didn’t realise quite how many until I got home and pulled them out of my bag.  There are lots of veggies that I love, and that I look forward to growing.  Fresh, crisp lettuce.  Dark green kale, chard, and collards.  Spicy radishes.  Fragrant basil and dill.  Juicy tomatoes.  But beans hold a special place in my heart.  I love to eat them, certainly, and I cook with them often.  But I also think that they’re beautiful, and one of their delights is that it’s clear what they’ll become, if allowed to grow.  When I see them sitting out in front of me, with their lovely colours and varied patterns, it’s difficult to resist their lure.

But the magic in these beans doesn’t just stop at what they’ll produce.  I also see it around what they do to me.  In a sense, they’re just beans, like the ones I buy in the supermarket or that wait in jars in my kitchen until I cook them into something hearty and tasty and healthy.  But at the same time, they inspire me, probably more than any other seed that I have.  And seeing that gets me inspired not only to plant, but also to dream about what that harvest might look like come fall.  They’re a tangible reminder of what they’ll produce, given the opportunity.  While they may not reach into the clouds like Jack’s beans, these ones have their own kind of magic.  Even if they don’t net me a golden egg , I still get some delicious beans in addition to the green shoots of dreams heading for the sky.  Sounds like a fair deal to me.