The Marvel of Venice moves to Idaho | Ammi Midstokke

According to the ski mountain reports, winter has finally arrived with a blessing of new snow. Meanwhile, I’m perusing seed catalogs and wondering, “Is it too soon to hope for spring?”

It is more the “hope” I am in need of than the “spring.” And those tiny little promises of green, determined stalks and tender leaves, poking out of soil seem to offer just that.

Someone recently gave me a plant that I accidentally kept alive, which has me even more gardening-brash than usual. It is not that I believe I possess any particular gardening skills. Rather, I simply forget the ecological travesty from the previous year. Instead, I will remember a few singular successes, by which I define the whole I’m-a-gardener charade: a few eggplants that were edible, and an enormous Marvel of Venice bean vine that would have led to a golden-egg laying goose, were it more upward-ambitious.

That bean bush, a surprising late starter I’d lost hope for, took over a whole corner of my garden. It spun its way up a trellis, then launched off the top in reckless leans toward the fence, the gate, other vines. It made tunnels between the beds and the garden posts, created a broad, leafy house of shade. Tiny white flowers began appearing everywhere. Then, they produced beans.

At first, they were small and unassuming. I’d forgotten what I’d planted, and upon further research discovered these beans are supposed to grow rather large. I left them on the vine, where they proliferated in the privacy of the plant complex that was taking over my garden. The internet told me they were a prized, buttery, delicious flavor. I made plans to impress dinner guests, perusing recipes from Italy.

The beans grew longer as all the tiny blossoms were replaced with stretching pods of a soft yellow color that belied their promised flavor. Still, I waited until they looked like the pictures I’d seen of them prepared: sautéed beans in cast iron pans, beans softened and tossed with a delicate tomato sauce, probably paired with a Chianti or Montepulciano.

The other things in my garden, like disappointing children, had failed to make the grade. The beets did not beet. The radishes were unruly. The shishito peppers produced in single digits. The two jalapeños flavored a single bowl of salsa.

Those beans, though, they were indeed marvelous.

When I began harvesting them, I filled giant bowls of the things. They hung across the edges, an exploding bounty, lanky pods leaning in all directions, fearless and arrogant in their productivity. They were practically bragging to the other plants. “See what happens when you’re the favorite?” they whispered as I marched between the beds and into the kitchen to wash them.

I laid them out to dry and sliced a few at an angle, just as I’d seen some chef do in a video while she waxed poetic about the unique and coveted taste.

Then I threw one in my mouth and chomped down.

Nothing happened.

It didn’t taste like anything at all, except maybe the kind of fiber that makes you proud in the morning. I tried another, and then another, wondering if younger or older ones had a different flavor. I opened the pods and ate just the beans. They were equally disappointing. I tried sautéing them in actual butter, the latter proving to be the best and only flavor in the dish.

I put them in the fridge and waited. They did not get any better.

Eventually, I gave up on them, and sliced every single one open to harvest and dry the beans. That is when I discovered their true marvel. As they dried, they turned all hues of marbled purple until my drying-plates were filled with tiny, iridescent jelly-beans. I put them in a labeled ziplock to await their eventual purpose in a pot of soup, where their blandness would be hidden by the onions and garlic. Banished from my planting plans, none of them will make it back into the garden this year.

Thomas Edison, who must have also been a gardener, once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways it won’t work.” In this spirit, I am flipping the pages of seed catalogs in my annual ritual of naivety, where I select varietals with disregard for geography and ecology. It is likely I will have packets of okra seeds delivered, and perhaps a small mango tree or a papaya.

The seedlings are equally naive, and days or weeks after being potted in tiny incubators of soil, tenderly cared for in a controlled environment of sunlight and warmth, will emerge only to discover they have been born in Idaho.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com