Gardening is the purest form of human pleasure

Jo Anne Boudreau

Snap beans are a fast growing bush or vine that takes up a lot of space in the garden. The bush varieties produce more quickly than the climbing varieties. Once beans are ready for harvest be prepared to pick them often to keep them producing. I love to go to the garden early in the morning to fill a basket with this delectable vegetable that is loaded with vitamins A and C, calcium and iron.

Years ago I got a phone call in April from a neighbor lady that lived and gardened by herself on a farm southwest of my farm. When I said “Hello” she said, “Do you have any string beans?” and laughed and said I could come to her garden and pick some of hers. I was so amazed that anyone would be picking string beans that early in the season that I had to go see them and find out how they were producing so early. I found out in time that my neighbor lady had lots of fun being the first to pick string beans, tomatoes and peppers. She made gardening fun and inspired all of us around her to try to out-do her crops. We planted the old tried and true varieties and some new ones that might produce a little quicker. We tilled and worked in lots of animal manure and composted. We watered and hoed and had so much fun trying to grow the best garden around. I hauled in stock trailer loads of cotton trash from the old gin in Perrin. And that was the undoing of my front garden for many years. I found that cotton is one of the most pesticide and herbicide laden crops there is. Everything I tried to grow in that front garden turned to dried up sticks. It has taken many years of dried molasses to feed the microbes that clean up contaminated soil to bring that garden soil back to life. Once a year I broadcast 100 pounds each of dried molasses, corn meal to feed earthworms, nitrogen rich cottonseed meal, and alfalfa meals per 1,000 square feet to enrich the soil. Last year I grew the most magnificient crops of mullein, yarrow and turnips in that garden. My neighbor lady has since gone on to bigger and better things but I still think of her and her string beans with a smile every spring when I plant my beans.

Plant string beans from mid-March through April and again from July to September. Some gardeners plant bush varieties every two weeks to prolong the harvesting season. Water beans at soil level with a soaker hose since wet leaves can become diseased. Beans need good air circulation so thin to six inches apart. Beans take between 45 to 70 days to produce. Plant radishes along bean rows to repel beetles. Companion plant calendula, corn, cucumbers, fennel, petunias, potatoes, rosemary and sunflowers with beans. Beans are hungry plants that like a good drink of fish emulsion and liquid seaweed every two weeks. A thick layer of alfalfa hay around bean plants will keep soil-borne disease from splashing up on the leaves. The hay composts into the soil and feeds microbes.

A woman was being treated for accumulation of fluid in the tissues brought on by heart disease. Nothing worked. One day she went to her doctor to show him that all the swelling was gone. She told him she was drinking a glass of bean pod water a day and began passing clear urine. The doctor told other patients about bean pod water and found that kidney blockage of long duration was completely cured with drinking up to a quart of bean pod water a day. Stones and gravel were rapidly dissolved and did not return. Rheumatism and gout vanished. Even some cases of diabetes were cured. The doctor called it his “wonder cure.” I can’t wait to start picking string beans right out of the garden.