A Load of Crop Part II: First Harvest

Spilling the beans on the summer’s weirdest gardening project

By June, our initially tenacious front yard beans, which sprouted against all odds in our shady front flowerbed, had stalled. While their backyard brethren happily thrived in their patio grow bags and ate up the distance between our patio and the clouds, the front yarders were stunted. In our commitment to helping all beans to thrive, both front and back yard beans were given homemade bamboo trellises for support.

Equal isn’t the same as fair, though. Equal access to trellises was not enough to enable the front yarders to reach for the skies. It’s a surprise that the beans sprouted to begin with; failure to thrive was probably inevitable. Giving them equal access to needed sunlight meant one of two things: Removing the tree blocking the light (expensive and impractical) or relocating the mini-beanstalks to a more hospitable home. In the interest of helping all beanstalks to thrive, the front yarders joined their brethren on the back patio in adjacent grow bags.

Now fully included in an all-bean environment, the front yard beans have merged into the tangle of plants. In the right environment — adequate light, Leah’s benign neglect, and my brown thumb — they are indistinguishable from their same-age peers and the unwieldy crop yielded its first harvest in August.

And thus, over the course of one summer, Leah’s oddball approach to gardening evolved into a metaphor for special education. Leah herself looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I suggested she taste the fruits of our labor. Her prior history with beans is mostly confined to using them as a weapon. But that is a completely different post.