NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Paul Holmes: Patience brings its own rich rewards

NZ Herald
12 Oct, 2012 04:30 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The broad bean is one of the sweetest, most tender vegetables there is. Photo / Thinkstock

The broad bean is one of the sweetest, most tender vegetables there is. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

Broad bean a metaphor for life: Some things are best left alone

This was the week of the resurrection of the broad bean seedling.

After quite a hectic last weekend in which I returned to Q+A after several months away, I came home to Poukawa and spent a couple of idle days lolling about the place reading. But on Wednesday I sprang into action and got round to planting a few of the wooden olive bins we have lying round. These are normally used to carry olives to the press after the harvest. This year, we lined four of them and filled them with beautiful, friable soil and compost I came back from town armed to the teeth with tomatoes and iceberg lettuce seedlings to plant out. Yes, the hell with all those flash lettuces. We've gone back to iceberg. And Mum's condensed milk dressing. Nothing like it.

I also bought broad bean plants. The broad bean has fallen out of fashion, I suppose one could say. It's very rare to meet anyone who licks their lips at the thought of broad beans. I love broad beans. My mother loved her broad beans and would never have contemplated a Christmas dinner without broad beans. If you have the patience to peel each bean, the broad bean is one of the sweetest most tender vegetables in the world.

The tomatoes planted out easily. The broad beans, I discovered, were root bound in their little tub. Separating the plants was tough. In a couple of cases I was left with barely any roots, just the old bean seed itself with the seedling protruding bravely from it. I watered them in and the garden looked like a great old mud pie.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

When I came back about an hour later to examine with pride my great work of planting I was greeted by the sight of one of the broad beans tumbled over catastrophically and looking for all the world to be out for the count. I know plants can wilt on replanting but this broad bean seedling looked as if it had photosynthesised its last bit of chlorophyll, given up the ghost and fallen over dead. I imagined the Eiffel Tower fallen over on its side.

I sought the advice of Nigel, our farm manager, who now, five years on, has forgiven my calling the goat I bought in Yemen by his name. Nigel is a very good vegetable man. Nigel counselled patience. My own instinct was not to prevaricate and replace the plant straight away but Nigel's counsel won the day.

My wife came home. She'd been with our niece Natalie to the Chocolate Factory, just outside Napier. Deborah hadn't been there before. She assumed that anything called the Chocolate Factory would be heaven for an 11-year-old. Instead, the place was full of very large women scoffing vast slices of chocolate cake. There was nothing on the menu for kids. How stupid, we both thought. What a silly way to run a chocolate business.

Anyway, I showed Deborah what I thought was the fatally wounded bean which, by then, I was assuming I'd snapped it at the base when I planted it.

Just before sunset, however, I walked over to the bins for a final inspection. I couldn't be sure, maybe I was imagining it, but I could swear that there had been a little straightening of the trunk. The top of the seedling seemed to have risen ever so slightly from the ground. What could one do but hope for the best?

Discover more

Lifestyle

Recipe: Green beans, lamb and toasted pine nut dressing

12 Sep 01:00 PM
Lifestyle

Brunch with flair (+recipes)

27 Sep 05:30 PM
Lifestyle

Recipe: Renaissance choc oatmeal stout beef and black beans

04 Oct 12:00 PM
Lifestyle

3 ways with ... Spring lamb

13 Oct 04:00 PM

Next morning, I went immediately to inspect and could not believe the sight that greeted me. Standing up proud and tall, the tallest of them all, was the sick broad bean, full of life and health. The little bean was safe. And to think, my own impatience might have destroyed its life. It is true of all gardening that you need patience. And I was reminded again that there is very little in the world more satisfying than gardening.

I told the editor of this august journal that I was planning to write about the resurrection of the broad bean. He seemed delighted and said, "We must save the broad bean." He spoke of recently having dined in Melbourne on a delicious old Cretan dish of artichokes and broad beans. You can Google the recipe easily. It requires a cup of extra virgin olive oil, I notice, which is a very fine thing.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Indeed, the broad bean has a Mediterranean/North African origin and there are remains of the broad bean in sites in Israel dating back to the Bronze Age. Interesting, the Bronze Age. All they had was copper and tin and they worked out how to make a very hard metal called bronze. This lasted 1500 years. That's a long time filling bronze pots and cutting trees down with bronze axes.

The Romans used to give the gladiators a feed of barley and broad beans before they headed into battle. The broad bean is full of goodness and helps the body manufacture dopamine, the dope in your head that helps control your moods. So the little broad bean saved itself, proof that sometimes in life, if you leave things alone they sort things out themselves.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

Watch: Black Power gang members farewell Selwyn Robson with stirring haka

12 May 08:38 AM
New Zealand

Black Power members perform a farewell haka for Manurewa homicide victim Selwyn Robson.

Politics

Govt earmarks $100m for students underachieving in maths, new ‘maths intervention’ teachers

12 May 07:30 AM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

Watch: Black Power gang members farewell Selwyn Robson with stirring haka

Watch: Black Power gang members farewell Selwyn Robson with stirring haka

12 May 08:38 AM

Members were seen performing a haka as pallbearers carried his coffin into the clubhouse.

Black Power members perform a farewell haka for Manurewa homicide victim Selwyn Robson.

Black Power members perform a farewell haka for Manurewa homicide victim Selwyn Robson.

Govt earmarks $100m for students underachieving in maths, new ‘maths intervention’ teachers

Govt earmarks $100m for students underachieving in maths, new ‘maths intervention’ teachers

12 May 07:30 AM
Abuse in state care: PM defends broken promise, emotional Hipkins slams Govt ‘injustice’

Abuse in state care: PM defends broken promise, emotional Hipkins slams Govt ‘injustice’

12 May 07:26 AM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP