Terror in the Bean Patch

Who would have thought that a simple excursion to the garden to pick a few beans for supper could be such an adventure?

I love fresh-picked and cooked-to-perfection beans, green or yellow, with my summer time suppers.  This year I planted mostly pole beans and have been amazed and delighted with how well they grew.  Of course, it's hard to create suitable supports for plants that could grow to 10 feet or more in height.  Knowing that I can't reach that high to pick my beans, I supported my plants on wooden stakes and chicken wire 6 feet high.  When the plants rapidly reached the top of that structure, I trained the vines to grow back down the wire.  This way, I thought, all my yummy beans would grow at an easy-to-reach picking height.

 All I wanted was a pail of beans.

What I hadn't taken into account was how bushy this double thickness of stems, leaves, and vines would be.  Long before the first pods ripened, I realized that there was now very little space left between the rows for me to step in and pick.  Ah well, I decided, I'll just have to take my chances at being "swallowed" by the bean patch.

Little did I realize how tense it would be in there.  I stepped in between the leafy vines and immediately felt hundreds of rough-surfaced leaves leech on to my knit top.  After only two steps I had vines across my ankles and lifting my feet to take a third step promptly tangled the vines tighter about my feet.  But ... I was managing, picking lots of long, plump beans and tossing them into my nearby pail.

Until, I reached for a bean at face level and... it blinked at me!  A green tree frog sat there, with nothing to stop it from leaping directly into my face, if it so chose.  Now, if you know me at all, you will understand that I'm terrified (it's actually a phobia) of all creatures reptilian and only slightly less panicked by  creatures amphibian, especially when I'm startled by them.

I shrieked, turned to scramble out of there, and ... couldn't move, held fast by adhesive leaves and twining vines.  (The makers of Velcro could learn something from the texture of green pole bean leaves).  It took a mighty wrench that tore away the top half of several plants and the lower vines of several more to get me away from that basically harmless little tree frog.  If frogs could laugh, this one would have roared, for sure.

As usual, I felt foolish later and it didn't take me long to go back in there to get the rest of my beans.  But removing those leaves clinging to my clothes was the painstaking chore of several hours, as I had to lay my top in the sun half the day to dry the leaves out enough that they would release their grip and then slowly peel and pick them away from the fabric.

Whew! Made it out alive!

Ah, but did those beans ever taste good.  I think they're worth braving the bean patch for again. And I'll keep an eye out for moving creatures ... while I pray that no snake goes in there to hunt frogs!