When life goes to the beans, plant melons

Another lesson from Gaia

I think all of you know the conflicts you can get into, with your family/friends/partners,  about what to grow in your garden. It all depends on room, taste, preferences, priorities and general opinions. It can be hard work to make compromises, so all are happy with the choices you make. I happen to have 3 very opinionated YA kids, that I love to pieces. We are all different, have different likes and dislikes and that’s okay.
Right now I am planning our cold season garden, at the same time, as I am planting fall crops in beds, where the plants has finished and been removed. Yesterday I removed the cucumber plants from a large trellis bed, where I am also growing okra. My plan was to grow beans there, since they are easy to grow and don’t need a lot of work or cultivation. That did not happen though.
When I mentioned it to the kids, I was met with a lot of NO’s. Their argument was that we don’t eat a lot of beans, and they are right about that, I just thought it was because we rarely buy them. As it turns out, non of the kids really like beans, so they think that the beans I have already got growing, will be plenty to get us through a year.
As I don’t want to grow food, that won’t be eaten, I found myself in the situation of not knowing what to plant. No way am I going to leave a bed without something eatable growing in it. It’s just a waste of space that way, and the okras don’t take up a lot of space. I am not going to write the whole family discussion down other, than I am proud of my kids for confronting the problem and calling me out on it. In the end we started talking about melons.
I wasn’t then, and still aren’t sure that we will be be able to produce melons, before we get our first frost. We live in SoCal grow zone 10b, so we probably won’t get any frost until December. In the end I did some research, and figured that if I bought the starter plants (saving the time it takes to germinate for transplanting), we would realistically have a chance of growing them. According to my seedtime calendar, we should be able to harvest melons starting the end of October and finishing by the middle of November.
For me this is very far from any chances I have ever taken with plants,  it we ended up buying cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon starters and planted them yesterday. Now, I still have a problem, since my plan for the cold season is, to grow lettuce in that bed. We will have to wait and see, if there will be room for lettuce among all of the melon plants. Otherwise I will have to spread lettuce seeds, anywhere I will be able to find a spot. I am proud though, that I was gently pushed outside my comfort zone.
In the end, I am satisfied that I am at least not wasting growing space, and glad that my kids feel comfortable enough to let me know, that enough is enough when it comes to growing beans. I love that they are passionate about food and what we grow in the garden. To me it means that they are thinking about what they eat, and have made the connection of garden to table meals.
As it is, I am growing Thai Soldier beans, Asian long red beans and contender green beans, so there will still be beans for me to indulge in from now until the end of the season. There will probably also be enough that I can preserve and store some for later. That’s the good thing about preserving food. I can make the portions as large or small as I want, and I am not mad, that I will get all of the beans to myself.
I think that the lesson from this is, that life is about compromise. We need to realize and accept, that we can’t always get what we want and that’s okay. We need to listen to others and be respectful about their wishes and opinions. In the end, it will open up opportunities to learn and evolve, and eventually bring us closer together. It’s a way for us to open up, and see things from a wider perspective, instead of staying in our own little box.

I feel the same.  My kids are adults, but still live at home.  They request veggie they want me to grow. I'm not a huge fan of beans either, but my kids like them, so I grow long beans. My daughter loves okra, I don't, but it's easy to plant okra for her.  
It makes me feel so good to see them picking and eating veggies from the garden. As a parent it's just as important to learn as teach.
Thanks for sharing