She kept two gardens

One garden grew for fun. It’s purpose light and unregulated. Tomatoes and peppers, mostly. Winter squash grown as much for the way it looked as for what it became. Cucumbers and greens picked young, eaten fresh, almost carelessly. It breathed with the seasons, a good place to spend the evening, hands busy and mind quiet.

She didn’t depend on it.

Some weeks she forgot to harvest at all.  Zucchini swelled past usefulness. Lettuce sagged and burned in the heat. The dogs ate more tomato than the children. Much of the produce went into the compost pile. She shrugged when it happened. Because dinner still came from the store. From bags, boxes, and jars. If the garden had failed, nothing bad happened. She just went to town.

 

That was fine. Expected, and normal. That garden didn’t need to be efficient. It didn’t need to exist. It only needed to be pleasant.Which was not exactly why the other garden existed. Not for fun, or taste. Not for enjoyment or keeping up with the neighborhood.

That garden exists for just in case. That garden was only beans. Bingo beans climbed the chain-link fence as if they had been meant for it. She ate a few when they were young, snapped them into supper without thinking. Most she left alone. Those weren’t for eating.

She let them yellow, then brown. Let the pods dry and twist and rattle in the wind until they were finished. When frost threatened, she pulled them down by the armful, brittle and light.

She didn’t shell them carefully. Didn’t fuss.

Pods and all went into a five-gallon bucket. The lid snapped shut. A date written in marker. The bucket went onto a shelf in the shed, pushed back where spiders could claim it.

Hopefully never to be seen again. Hopefully. If the fragile systems that supported modern life failed—if food could not be bought for any reason—she would plant the beans. Thousands of them.

They would provide nutrients. Field corn, taken from a farmer’s silo, would provide calories. It wasn’t much of a hassle, or a plan. It was not for fun. It was a survival garden.