Tag: gardening

Where Do Green Beans Come From?

If you live in a big city, you may not have seen where green beans come from except for a can of green beans, like this one, or a bag of frozen green beans from a grocery store.

If you live in the country, your family might grow green beans in your garden just like our family does. So for those of you who’ve never had the chance to experience growing your own green beans, I’d like to give you a peek into what that looks like. It all starts with preparing an area of dirt or a garden box so you have a place to plant the green bean seeds. You will see green bean seeds in lots of stores in the spring time. There are different types of green beans, but this is the kind we are growing this year.

Here’s a closer up picture of the seeds.

We planted our green bean seeds on May 25th this year and they grew into large plants that look like this:

If you gently move the leaves aside and look underneath, you can see green beans growing there! And they are ready to pick!

I picked a bunch of the green beans off the plants and brought them inside our house.

The way I learned to prepare green beans is to start by laying a piece of newspaper across your lap and add a small pile of beans to it.

Here’s what a fresh green bean, straight from the garden, looks like:

Notice that the bean has a little pointy portion that sticks out on each end. We snip or break both ends off.

Then we snap or break the bean into several pieces. The number of pieces it’s broken into depends on how long the bean is. Here’s about the size we break them into:

Our big pile of green beans yielded this amount of snapped green beans:

The next thing that happens to the green beans is to put them in a dishpan with water and gently scrub them a little between your hands to get them clean.

Now it’s time to cook them! We put them in a large pan and add some water and put the pan on the stove and turn the heat on. We cook them until they soften to our desired tenderness, which might vary from one person to the next.

I’m not sure these pictures actually show the difference, but the beans will change color somewhat as they cook.

The green beans are finally ready to eat! How do you like to eat your green beans? I like them with butter melted on them and sprinkled with some salt! Yum!! They are also very delicious cooked with some ham.

If you have never done your own green beans from “scratch”, I’d like to suggest you look for some fresh green beans in your grocery store or at a nearby farmer’s market. It’s a great experience for kids and adults to prepare their own fresh green beans. (Mind you, after you’ve done several bushels of green beans at one time, it does get rather tiring! Been there, done that! Lol) I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into fresh green beans straight from the garden! 🙂

Making a Fairy Garden

Yesterday was National Gardening Day but I forgot about it. Lol I thought we would honor that holiday by doing a little gardening today. Let’s make a fairy garden! They are easy to make and so much fun. You’ll need a container which can be just an old pan or something inexpensive you grab from the store. You’ll also need some dirt or potting soil, some fairy garden figurines, and a few plants that will stay small.

A great place to find fairy garden figurines is a Dollar General store. They had a whole section of things great for fairy gardens and they were priced at $1.00 each! Other stores like Joann Fabrics or Walmart have fairy garden figurines too, but they are more expensive.

There are different kinds of plants you can get for this project and some stores even have them labeled as good for fairy gardens. I’m using some Hens and Chicks succulents for mine.

Using a nail and a hammer, make a few holes in the bottom of your pan or pot so it can drain excess water. Then add some dirt or potting soil so the container is nicely full but the dirt doesn’t come all the way to the top. Leave a little room at the top so the water doesn’t just run off but stays in the pan.

Place the main pieces of your fairy garden figurines in your pot approximately where you want them to be. And lay the plants in place, just on top of the soil. Check your arrangement and make sure everything is right where you like it.

Remove the figurines…you’ll place them back in just a couple of minutes.

Plant each plant into the dirt and pack the dirt lightly around each one.

Now place the fairy garden figurines into your garden. Arrange any little stones that you want to use in place now too. You can make a little walking path, if you like.

Gently water your plants.

And that’s all there is to it! Place your fairy garden in a place where it can be enjoyed by everyone.

One word of caution, the water will drain out the bottom of your garden so remember that when you decide where to put it. It could leave a little dirt behind. I hope you will make your own fairy garden and enjoy it all spring, summer and fall! A fun activity to do with your fairy garden and your kids is to make up a story involving your little fairy garden and who might come to visit it! 🙂