Last year, Sadie and I did not grow or can any beans. I planted mostly sunflowers, a few tomatoes, peppers, zuchinni and squash. It was a busy summer – my brother got married, then had surgery. We took our pigs and heifers to market, and processed meat birds. The garden was left alone for weeks at a time. But the sunflowers were lovely and I saved several heads of seed.
This year, I did more planning with the garden and have made ‘putting up’ a priority. I had Sadie come by and show me the ropes on canning beans. I hadn’t done it since 2017, couldn’t quite remember all the steps to set up the pressure cooker, and wanted to spend time with Sadie.
So far, I have put up 28 quarts and 10 pints. There is enough for another run of pints, but I may just cook those up and eat them. It was a great summer for green beans – very hot and dry. It always amazes me to put seeds in the ground and watch them come alive. It’s pure magic. And I noticed the bees really worked each flower. The second week of picking there were twice as many beans.
One night, Sadie and I were canning, and she told me about the first time Uncle Jack showed her how to can. He always preferred half-runners. Something about a bean with no string is no bean at all. But he was a professional, and very typical. Sadie said she wasn’t too sure of what to do at first, so she put the label tags on the outside of the jar. “It was the summer of ’86” she told me. “We canned peanut beans and they turned out pretty good.”
I can see her and Jack in the kitchen – dogs and cats all around. The steam coming off the boiling pots, jars on every flat surface. It’s a legacy I am proud to continue. Everything I have today is because of their sweat, blood and tears. Everything Sadie has taught me, someone taught her.
The other night I went down to the basement to get more mason jars. I had already canned with the newer, cleaner ones, and was down to the last row on the back shelf. One jar with a paper label caught my eye. It read ‘Peanut Beans: 6-21-86’
I couldn’t believe it. What are the chances that a jar from that first run would survive? That it fed them for dinner, then made its way back down to the basement.. and sat there the whole time. The whole time I grew up visiting, and the past 5 years I have lived here and learned to farm. I gave one to Sadie and kept one for myself. I think I will find some Peanut Beans to put in it, and tell the story at Christmas. It’s a little piece of this farms history, of the legacy I get to enjoy every day.
CarolineDuvall 