Will it grow? It’s a question I ask everytime I push a seed into the ground. Nine days ago, I planted a pound of shirohana beans. Yesterday, I got my answer. Rising out of the ground were new leaves. I looked and found more and more beans unfolding their first leaves from inside beans which were splitting open. It’s amazing to think that these beans, in fact all of life on earth, can trace its roots back four billion years. We are all so different now, and yet we all have the same ancestors. Even these new beans sprouting out of the soil and you reading this article share a distant mother.

• Shirohana-mame – White Flower Beans
• Out of the Garden Today – October 12, 2014