July 29

I have to say that I'm impressed with my lima bean plants.

I had five seeds left from last year, so I planted all five and waited to see what would happen. (Since the seeds were old and all there were definitely no guarantees.)

All five sprouted, and once they were a few inches tall, I transplanted them into this big pot that sits over by the door to our kitchen. 

I took this pic with my hand for perspective because they're very happy lima bean plants. (Not that my hand is huge --it's actually quite fun-sized-- but you can see that the leaves are spilling over the edges of their quite-large pot.) Each of the little flowers can produce a pod, and quite a number of them already have. 

So I guess I have a few morals to this story. For one, never discount the potential value of seeds that seem useless or like they're past their prime because you never know if they'll sprout and take root until you plant them. So go ahead and plant them! For another, always, always hope, because you can't predict the fruit that you'll eventually produce when you try to do good.