This is the first year we've planted a garden at this home. It's modestly small, but still a point of joy for our little family. With joy we harvested the first of our zucchinis. With joy we watched as our sunflowers stretched for the sky. With joy we marveled at how the canteloupe vines were growing up our fence. Vines.... interesting little things. Especially when you find them growing from plants they're not supposed to be on.
I was quite surprised to find a huge mess of vines growing under my bean plants. We have yellow bush beans and green bush beans, but my yellow beans were good sprouts and very well behaved. They grew where I planted them, in nice little rows. The greenies, however, were angry toddlers throwing a tantrum all over the garden! These preschooler-vines were out of control. They clung to their neighboring plants, fearlessly climbed over our fence, and ran across the ground with so many little fingers eagerly seeking to grab anything.
(Apparently, the seed company I ordered from mislabelled their Kentucky Wonder Bush Beans and sent me pole beans. Pole beans need trellises, which we don't have. Or rather, didn't have. An assortment of dead elm branches poked into the soil now decorates our little garden and gives it that, um, natural look.)
Back to the vines - The time I spent unwinding the fragile curlicues and training them up the elm branches afforded me some moments to reflect on this mess. My mind instantly turned towards knitting. The care and slow progress of untangling my bean vines felt a lot like the Narrow Neckband incident I was currently with Owen's sweater (see previous post). In some ways, the pale green vines were yarn in my hands, but I was unknitting a project God had already started. It was one of those projects that needed to take a hard right turn to get to the destination. Like when you start a scarf but it ends up a purse after a friend points out that your chic furry yarn will tickle your nose and make you sneeze a lot (not chic). Strangely enough, the dying elm tree that God gave us with this house was just what was needed to complete this garden knitting. Now that the "trellises" are up, I'm excited to see what kind of project God knits up with these ambitious vines. Hopefully it tastes good.
PS - if anyone knows of a lace knitting pattern with vines & leaves, I'd love to visually work this into something that will last beyond harvest. Please email me.
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