Blessings and the Beanstalk
Over the winter, Jimmy and I decided we’d grow pole beans in the spring in order to use some vertical space in our garden. We grow our crops in raised beds, and they fill up quickly. It made sense to try gardening “up” for a change.
So Jimmy built a new, 36-inch high by 72-inch long raised bed along one of our garden fences and constructed a huge trellis on which the beans could climb.
We planted two varieties—Seychelles and Scarlet Runner. I’d seen Scarlet Runner growing in the historical garden at Fort Roberdeau two years ago. The beanstalks grew on trellises made of tree branches, and they were covered in striking red blossoms. I researched Scarlet Runner and learned that its flowers attracted hummingbirds. Sold. I ordered the seeds.
We planted the Seychelles and Scarlet Runner seeds in early May, after some uncharacteristic spring frosts had finally relented here. Then we babied the germinating seeds and protected them with hardware cloth to keep the chipmunks away from them.
By mid-July the vertical space experiment was paying off: we had an abundance of slender, tender, sweet Seychelles beans.
They are the best beans we’ve ever grown, and it’s not even close.
The Scarlet Runner stalks took off toward the top of Jimmy's trellis 20 feet up and were adorned with bright reddish orange blossoms, as beautiful as anything in our garden.
Then it happened.
One morning a male ruby-throated hummingbird came to sip nectar from one of the scarlet runner blossoms. Then a female.
Then over the next several days another and another. What they said in the seed catalog was true. The hummingbirds will feed on these beanstalks before we do.
Once I saw that first jeweled bird, I decided that If we didn’t get a single bean, it didn’t matter. We’d found another nectar source for our beloved hummingbirds.
And for native bees. Carpenter bees by the dozens tumbled among the flowers, seemingly drunk on nectar.
I even saw a monarch butterfly feeding on one of the blossoms. I couldn’t get a photo, but it didn’t matter. These beanstalks were bringing us joy every time we looked at them.
Last week I was out harvesting in the evening, peeking carefully behind leaves to look for beans without disturbing the fragile blossoms. Overhead I heard the busy, frenetic squeaking of the chimney swifts that spend the summer in the smokestack of the old L.S. Peterman greenhouse at the bottom of our hill.
But this was different. This was a lot of chimney swifts. Many more than the normal number.
The chimney swifts have had their babies, I whispered to myself.
I looked up and watched as fourteen of them, adults and juveniles, swooped and darted through the air feeding on insects and chattering to one another non-stop.
I could have easily missed this. But I didn’t.
I stood there with a colander in my hand and just let the blessing of that moment wash over me and through me. The blessing of our backyard harvest and the blessing of being able to witness the emergence of yet another miracle happening right above me. At the beanstalk that called me outside that evening. Thank you, God.
Go outside tonight or tomorrow morning. Leave whatever seems important on the kitchen table in the house. It’ll be there when you come back in. Just go outside and listen. Look. Watch.
Do you see it?
Can you hear it?
The blessing is right there. Right…there. In the hedgerow. Amidst the flowers nodding on the southwest breeze. Sitting quietly on the branch of a black walnut tree. In the sky right above you. On the humble and yet glorious beanstalk that is calling you outside to witness the wonder of God’s creation.
Comments