Beanie Babies

It has been more than twenty years since I studied botany as an eager adult student, staring in awe down a microscope at chloroplasts circulating mysteriously inside plant cells, but the word jumped immediately to mind as soon as I saw them.

Cotyledons.

Those first, two fleshy leaves that plants push above the soil when they germinate, cotyledons have extra energy stored in them to give the plants a boost until they can produce leaves and, then, miraculously, food for themselves and for virtually everything else on Earth.

My bean plants have sprouted.

There are six little clusters of plants in a row in my garden, all destined to become Blue Lake green beans, if I remember to water them between now and bean production. As Robert Fulghum famously reminded us years ago, it's a wonder every time it happens.