Holy Cow!

This spring my friend Beth gave me some beans in trade for a cow...

Actually, Beth gave me two bean plants. She explained to me that these beans have been handed down generation after generation and came from Thomas Jefferson's garden. I'm pretty sure they are Hyacinth beans.

I have two groups of potted herbs on my back patio, so I planted the beans in a large container and placed it among those pots. Once I realized the beans were climbers, I took one of my copper stick-figure-folk and stuck it in the pot as a support.


This subject is hard to photograph. It would be better with a plain backdrop but I can't move the pot around and the thin lines of the copper pipe are hard to pick up with the camera.

Hopefully you can see the structure here and how the beans began to grow up the copper pipe.


I decided my stick-figure-folk needed a head (I named him "Tom") so I added a nice shiny copper toilet float on top.

Uh oh, those beans really started to grow and before I knew it they were encircling poor Tom's neck!



Something had to be done quickly, so I thought it would be nice to have Tom hold up an umbrella that the beans could still grow upon. Luckily I have a number of pieces of copper pipe left over from an old flower show exhibit.


Here you can see the collection of pots, the stick-figure and the long section of pipe. Ahhh, now I felt my beans had just what they needed.

This last photo was shot this morning. At the top of the long pipe I spread out some more copper tubing to simulate the spokes of an umbrella. Unfortunately I noticed that the beans are already as high as the gutter of the house and I don't think this is nearly enough of a growing frame for them!

Looks like a trip to Home Depot is on my "to-do" list. I'm going to have to get some more copper fittings and get creative. I think I'll buy a bundle of refrigerator copper tubing and create a larger umbrella structure up top.

Anybody have a better idea? I'm listening but hurry up, at this rate there's going to be a giant climbing down this structure by the end of the week!

Fe-fi-fo-fum,
Melanie