The Corn Is As High As a Chihuahua's Eye

I didn't have sense to plant the seeds in the ground and wait; I sprouted them under a wet paper towel on cookie sheets in the kitchen. Instead of sprouting, some molded. Interesting life parable there.

Our corn kernels came from a trip four years ago to a family farm outside of town. My son got to roll around in a stock tank filled with cattle feed (this seemed to be very popular with little kids for some reason) and when he undressed that night, the kernels had seeped into his pockets. These kernels were as big as CornNuts and sat on the dryer in the garage, mixing with lint and dust. I didn't know if they'd sprout (duh! why not? old age is a time of miracles!) but they did, and we planted 'em. Only one did not come up.

My mom said to plant a bean and a corn sprout together so that the corn stalk could provide support to the twining bean. I felt like a regular Pocohontas doing this, except I didn't drop a fish in each mound. I wonder if I could get rid of these burpy old Fish Oil capsules for that purpose.

Now there are five ears of tasseling corn that have appeared, and I hope there are more on the way. Doesn't this one look like a muppet?

Mama says they'll be okay for roasting ears if picked while tender. I do not plan to grind the corn with a matate when you can buy a box of cornmeal for 99 cents. We'll dry one for seed and try this again next year.

I Bean Very Busy

I can't say enough about beans! I love beautiful beans! I love opening the dried cases and popping out the seeds like tiny jewels! Beans sprout quickly (which is probably why all the first-graders do that experiment with the black-paper-in-a-baggie), they leaf out quickly, and they produce with gratifying promptness. Their flowers are humble but interesting: the green beans have a purple flower, the pintos are white, and the Anasazi are peach. I can imagine a small city courtyard with beans vining up a trellis in lush profusion.

In my first post I uploaded a picture of the first row of beans in their little riverside condos. Here's the row a month later (two straggling tomatoes destroy the symmetry in front).








The little bean pods can be harvested green, even if they aren't green beans (I managed to mix up my sprouts and had to wait until I figured out the flower color/dried bean connection). The flatter pods give the impression of snow peas.

They are very good stir fried with a little soy sauce. The boy says, "These are almost bearable!"




I've frozen some (with a quick hot-water blanching; I read about this somewhere). I've also used them for color in a pasta salad.

Recipe: Boil, drain and cool 1/2 lb. of multicolored rotini pasta. Add chopped tomatoes (these were storebought), bean pods, and whatever raw vegetables you think sounds good. Slosh generously with Italian dressing (or whatever comes to hand). Threaten son with prolonged loss of computer privileges if he doesn't try at least one bean.

The First Tomato

Yesterday I picked the first tomato. The variety is Sweep Steak, purchased from OSH in a six-pack, planted 3/31/09. Here's its kindergarten picture (it's the one hiding in the back).
















Adolescence: Let's say Mr. Tomato is in high school here, kind of shy and still hiding.

Interestingly, although he seems to be getting less sun, he turns a deeper red faster than his more extroverted friend here.









Yesterday, I picked him. You probably know that there is a little joint about a finger-width up the stem which breaks easily, so you don't have to use nippers for your harvest. Let's call this the graduation photo. Isn't he handsome?












His top side is scarred and split, but look how he smiles through the pain. I know he would not win a beauty contest, yet I love him so much I don't know if I can bear to eat him.

As a farmer, I am an anthropomorphizing doofus. Do not even ask if I have considered raising chickens.

The Resilience of Roses

I have a terrible habit of trying to extract meaning and metaphor from everything. Plant life is especially abundant in apparent similes for human travails.

In 2004 I had trimmed the roses back to the canes and that spring they responded graciously by not dying. (See left; notice how small the photinia bushes are to each side.)

Lesson: When pruned or cut back, respond by growing. Bloom if you can, it's the best revenge.




This year in April the roses massed over the photinia as if all one plant. By May the weather was in the 100's and all those pretty pink petals turned crispy.

Lesson 2: Keep growing. Lean on others but try not to choke them. And the dewy bud is beautiful but potpourri lasts longer.

Lesson 3, less Hallmarky: The most inept and neglectful gardener can enjoy spots of beauty with hardy and independent plants.

The Milagro Bean Field

I like beans, especially with bacon or ham, because they are a family dish. People who don't like them must not know how to fix them!

My mom remembers weeding beans when she was a child, and her mother would always have a pot of beans simmering at the back of the stove every Friday, when family members would stop by their house for dinner. I remember my grandma sitting at the table sorting beans one by one, and I thought she was counting them.

We lived too far away for more than a visit one week or two each year, so I like to imagine beans linking long-ago Indian ancestors through my grandma and mother through me to my son. As with most of my cooking, though, beans make him gag.

Two months ago I had an excess of energy and sprouted some beans (pinto, anasazi, and green beans) and corn kernels. My parents have always told me about growing up on farms and how their parents did things. They are long time subscribers to Farm and Country and Mother Earth. My sister and nephew are the horticulturalists in the family, and I don't even like mowing the yard. But with all the turmoil in the world and recession and dithering in Washington, I thought I should plant a garden. Within a month of my great effort, Michelle Obama put in the White House garden, so apparently we're part of trend.

In the picture you'll see the first row, back in April.