The last bean (part 1)

Today i shall officially announce the extinction of my homegrown green bean plants. its really sad and unexpected from the start. i thought it could continue on forever. until i lose track which generation a certain batch is from. i still do not know why it turned out this way. very strange.

Generation 1

It all started in july last year. we were doing bio practicals using green bean plants. we were given some beans to grow in different conditions. the teacher showed us some samples of young bean plants and it sparked interest in me to grow some for myself, until they reach adulthood and produce more beans. i knew they grew fast and simply, easy to grow. so i pocketed some of the beans i was given, and brought them home to raise as my own.

I first had them germinated in a nursery and picked out the healthiest plants, enough to fill 2 containers. Using plastic containers filled with fertilised soil stolen from the estate vegetation and a covering layer of cotton, i transfered the saplings over and there they stayed for the rest of their life.

Gen 1 in its younger days

Being the first time seriously growing a whole batch of bean plants, i was excited watching them grow. I visited them everyday and kept track of every plant's progress. it was quite a lot of time spent with them, averaging half an hour. some of them was rather unique so i knew them individually and even gave them names. some of the characters i remember

*Champion plant - the fastest growing and most promising of them all. its progress was very obviously outstanding. it had a unique split near the base of the stem so it appeared like it had 2 stems that merged above, creating a much thicker stem than the rest. it produced the first fruits of the batch, which ripened even before any other plants started growing fruits. the first fruit contained 7 seeds - the record for the 1st gen. at the peak of its growth, it had enormous leaves, the biggest 1 about 4 times the size of its baby leaf. this feature was never to be seen again in the following generations.

*Sunken colony - also quite a fast grower but didnt grow to champ's size. the special feature is that its main root forms an arch above ground and roots in a spot without cotton cover. (normal plants just roots where it is and penetrates the cotton cover. the main root is underground.) because of its improper foundation, it was unable to stand upright.

*mangrove - when it was young, its main root was on the ground, then it spawned many side roots that actually held it above ground, like a kampong on stilts. upon growing bigger, it became too eavy for the roots to support, so it collapsed and ended up in a weird posture. but survived to bear fruit.

*surgery patient - its stem somehow got damaged. dont know how. it was bent like someone with a broken spine. so i gave it super glue, trying to make it straighten up. from then on it had the artificial stem portion to hold it up. and then sth weird happened... it started to grow small roots at the glued area! but didnt grow long.

*solar panel - a really interesting plant. for a very long time, it remained as a small plant with just the 2 baby leaves. those leaves were a special dark green. it stayed stagnant like that but didnt die, so it resembled a solar panel, just absorbing sunlight and making energy.
Then one day... it finally started to grow new leaves, but 2 sets at a time! (this is abnormal.) those 2 sets were on separate branches which grew out of between the baby leaves. and these 2 branches later produced another set of leaves each, also at the same time. i could rename it twinheaded plant.

*singlerooter - this plant's main root never submerged. instead it just grew 1 side root to support and supply for the whole plant. so of course it was slow in growth. btw theres a scientific term for side root. i forgot...

And so the beans produced were used on first come first serve basis into planting the 2nd generation of plants, up to another 2 containers. so of course the first 7 gen2 plants came from that first fruit by champion plant. the average time for the plants to fruit is 3 months

Gen 1 in its dying days

Gen 1 continued to be fertile even at old age. Even when gen2 had already started to fruit, gen1 was still spawning pods. its like... when the children already have their own families, their parents are still giving them newborn siblings.
the average time from germination to fruiting is 3 months, and average lifespan is 6 months. so green bean plants dont live to be great ah mas.