Bean Pole Failure

We had some fun a few months ago making whimsical bean poles out of rebar. We got the idea from Tony Kienitz' book The Year I Ate My Yard. We planted our beans in two wine barrels, each with a different variety, and held our breath. While the beans in the sunny barrel took off like rockets, the beans in the other barrel refused to climb.

Now, our friend Mr. Jalopy (and his wife) like to say that you can either be smart or good looking, but not both. We at Ramshackle Solid must be, by process of elimination, exceptionally good looking. After some days of consternation and head scratching we went back to the seed packet to discover that the lazy beans were in fact bush beans not pole beans and would never climb, no matter what pole was offered them.

Although they don't do a thing to show off the fancy bean poles we made, these down-to-earth bush beans are delicious.