Who’da thought?

As Brooke is out of town most of the week, I’m generally left to my own devices, yet I still have to tend the garden.  My Mom frequently reminds me that she finds this baffling and amusing, as I’m probably the last person she ever thought she’d see gardening.

Especially green beans.

I’m somewhat notorious for my dislike of green beans.  To be fair, I have found them progressively more acceptable in my old age, but they are still the last vegetable I could ever want to see on my plate.  That said, getting them fresh from the garden, and somewhat “crispy,” is probably the best way to have them.

Mom picked some beans last week, amassing not quite an ice cream bucket full of them.  While she was picking, she pointed out which ones were probably good enough and which ones should stay on for another day or two before picking.  Using her imparted wisdom, I picked green beans for the first time ever, so far as I know.  We had some beans last year, but if I recall, Brooke picked them every time.  As you can see above, I ended up with almost two buckets full this time, and we’ve got quite a few more ready to pick in another few days, depending on how much sun they get (it rained some last night and is supposed to again over the next few days).

Being the wonderful husband I am, I even cut them and bagged them.  Now, this is definitely the first time I ever did this part of the job.  Brooke usually processes and cans the beans, but that’s right about where I draw the line.  I’ll stem them, since I can watch TV while I do it.  I won’t be canning them, though, so these will remain in the refrigerator until someone comes up here to eat them.

Brooke will return on Thursday night, so I’ll probably go out again and try to pick some more that night and leave them for her to process on Friday.  Considering how many beans were still on the plants, I think she’ll have more than enough to make it worth canning.

As a brief aside, the tomatoes are looking pretty awesome, with a few large ones turning a darker green color.  I imagine we’ll have a pretty huge crop of them in the next few weeks!