A bean plant's only goal is to create seed to ensure the next generation. Green beans are the immature seed pod of the plant, which wants to swell the seeds inside and allow them to dry, protecting the seed through the winter only to be activated by warm, wet soil in the spring and start again. I always anthropomorphize the plants after I pluck their seed pod--be it a green bean or ready tomato--imagining them to say, "Fine. I'll ripen another one."
--in Ruffage (2019). Chronicle Books. p. 222.