Growing Beans - How Much, When, and How close?

[Jeannine Anne]

Ahh, sounds as if you may have them..LOL Good Luck

XX Jeannine

[loeb]

Hi, maybe someone will know.. how many plants of bean do I need to maintain the variety? I just realized I have to plant some beans this year.. I got them from my grandma, and I believe that they sit in this glass jar on a shelf about 5 years..at least. I hope those will sprout, they are very special. I remember cleaning those beans with my grandgrandmother. I had to be really small then..

[Petronius_II]

CAUTION: Attack of severe genetic long-windedness follows. Proceed AYOR.

I wish you the best of luck with those beans. Five years at room temperature is kind of iffy, but I encourage you not to give up on your great-grandma's beans until you've given it your best shot. You want to preserve a certain amount of genetic diversity whenever possible.

Beans almost always self-pollinate before the flower even opens. Technically, you only need one plant to keep the variety going, but if I were in your shoes, I'd
plant up to 2/3 of your old seed stock, keeping the other 1/3 reserved in case something goes wrong with this years' experiment. (Preferably, reserved seed stock would be in a dry, sealed container in the refrigerator.)

I'd definitely sprout the beans indoors, and then plant the sprouted beans in containers if that's what you're going to do, or outside when your weather is warm enough if that's what you're going to do.

For pre-sprouting seeds, especially old seed, I strongly recommend using degassed water, sometimes referred to as "Wonder Water," for the initial soaking. With old beans, I'd say as a guesstimate, soak in degassed water for 10-12 hours; that worked just fine for me with some of the beans I pre-sprouted last year.

When rinsing the beans while waiting for them to sprout, I just use ordinary tap water, warm. Probably wouldn't hurt to use degassed water for this as well, I've just never bothered.

VERY IMPORTANT: When sprouting any seed, do yourself a favor and don't leave any of your seeds actually sitting in standing water. They'll rot. With the beans I sprouted last year, I had only a small quantity wrapped in a brown paper coffee filter cone. After discarding the degassed water in which I'd soaked the beans, I rinsed the beans and the brown paper cone, squeezed excess moisture out of the paper with my fingers, and then wadded up the open end of the paper cone and placed the little bundle in a glass jar with the loose was of paper on the bottom, making a sort of little platform that keeps the beans away from near contact with the bottom of the jar, and any water that may dribble down to the bottom.

All you have to do to make degassed water is, just boil a pot of water and let it simmer for about five minutes or so, not turning off the heat until little bubbles have completely stopped rising from the bottom of the pot. The idea here is to drive out dissolved chlorine, fluorine, and who knows what else dissolved gasses are in ordinary tap water-- even freshly well water, by the way. (When I was young, I had prominent extra-white spots on my teeth because our well water was naturally high in fluorine.)

Some proponents of Wonder Water insist on keeping ordinary room air from being introduced into the water until one is ready to use it. They recommend all kinds of elaborate routines to keep from disturbing the water, like packing it away in jars and handling them like Faberge eggs to avoid shaking, that kind of thing. Well, I'm not concerned about the water having oxygen dissolved in it; my working hypothesis is, ordinary room air is most likely perfectly okay. It's all the other stuff that little tender baby plants are better off without, that's why I do this routine.

But I just start soaking my filter paper as soon as the water has cooled down enough to stick my finger in it. With small seeds like tomato, pepper, etc. I then carefully space the seeds on the inside surface of the paper cone, fold it shut, put it in my glass jar, ladle in enough degassed water to submerge the bundle for the initial soaking. For beans and peas, maximum of twelve hours. For tomatos and peppers, up to 24.

When I do this routine with some varieties of radish seeds, like White Icicle for instance, the first taproots start appearing within a few hours.

Some more useful information about saving seeds from beans and other "easy to save" seeds can be found at:

http://www.seedsave.org/issi/904/beginner.html

[loeb]

Thank you! So, this is just a well-boiled water.. I'm usually presprouting squash and pepper seeds on a damp paper towels, so i think I can do it that way.. My tap water is soft, but it's not a problem to boil it, so i will. Thank you for that link, I would love to save most of my seeds, just those huge cages on some crops scares me Here beans cross easily because there is lots of pollinators around, so I'm going to plant only this one bean, let her to set pods and then I will maybe plant some snap bean too..

[RobinB]

Loeb,

I wish you all the success in the world! If you can sprout some and grow them out, I hope you will share them next year and we can all help you keep your precious bean around for the future!

Petronius,
I had never tried to sprout seeds in paper towels, until about a month ago when we did it during a homeschooling session. I had bean seeds in a damp paper towel and inside a slightly opened plastic bag. There was mold on most beans and only one sprouted. What is the best way to do this? No plastic bag perhaps? I did soak the beans overnight first.

[loeb]

For a educational project better would be making something like this: http://www.blogi.szkolazklasa.pl/pri...braz%20002.JPG http://szkola61.pl/images/stories/nasiona6.jpg this is cotton fabric, kind of a mesh type, placed on a jar full of water, the bottom of the fabric is touching water. On that fabric lays the bean, so it has lots of air, and the right amount of water.. evapouring water is easy to refill trough the mesh. Everything is easily visible - whole plant develoment

[RobinB]

That looks like a great idea for another, more successful project! He and I plant the pole bean seeds in the garden together every year (he is seven), but you can't see the whole plant that way. Thanks!

[Petronius_II]

CAUTION: If long-windedness offends you, consider yourself warned, LEAVE NOW.

From my (somewhat limited) experience, but fortified by a whole lot of reading, I'd say all of the following are important factors:

--After soaking the beans, you do want to put them wrapped in some kind of paper before you put them into a jar or plastic bag or clean chip-dip container or whatever. As far as the paper is concerned, I prefer some kind of plain brown paper because it's unbleached, and the brown coffee filters do the trick just fine, but really, in most cases a paper towel is good enough. But, when you put it in the container, it should be just lightly moist, not damp.

-- Instead of leaving your bag slightly opened, you would've done better to twist it or ziploc it or whatever, so it's completely shut. Hermetically sealed, one way or another. Mason jars are good for this, but so are any other number of containers. The way you make sourdough starter is just to leave some moist flour exposed to ambient room air, where all the little yeasties that just float around in the air can land on it and start fermenting the carbohydrates in the flour. Same principle applies to your moist beans.

-- It's best if the container, when you're not fiddling with it, is in a place where it will be both warm and at least somewhat dark. Almost all common vegetables sprout fastest in the 80-85 degrees F range, though there are a few who like it cooler and I'd have to go find my copy of Nancy Bubel's book to tell you what they are. (Kent Whealy's "Seed to Seed" also comes highly recommended by those who've perused it. Both books are common in publicf libraries nationwide.) There are even a few who I'm pretty sure like it even warmer, like eggplant, for example.

The point being, seeds really want a somewhat warmer temperature to germinate in the first place, than they will need to keep growing once they've germinated. Nancy Bubel says so, and she would know. I usually either place my germination containers on top of the refrigerator, where they catch the warm air coming up the back, or on a cupboard shelf up above the refrigerator. Not much warmer than the rest of the house, really, but a little bit. Moist brown paper also ensures a certain amount of darkness, which most seeds prefer, but don't absolutely need. A few seeds-- lettuce? foggy memory here-- actually require exposure to light before they'll germinate, but those species are few and far between. Again, either of the two books is good for checking up on the finer points.

-- Here's one of the most important things: The seeds and the paper need to be thoroughly rinsed each and every day. 48 hours without rinsing may be okay most of the time, but I try to keep it to circa every 24 hours and not forget to do so very much.

Tap water that's just a little warmer than lukewarm is about right for the purpose. The inside of the container should be rinsed, too, especially if you see any kind of faintly milky-looking coloration forming a film on the inside. That faint milkiness represents all kinds of micro-organisms setting up shop. It's not necessary to kill them, just get them the hell away from your precious little babies as best you can.

It almost goes without saying, if you see any kind of visible mold forming on the paper, change the paper. Any kind of visible mold on any of the seeds, discard the seed and rinse the remainder even more thoroughly.

That's one reason a lot of people prefer mason jars, I suppose, because it's easy to rinse out. But I've used all kinds of containers-- salsa jars, pickle jars, and ziploc bags. The chief virtue of ziploc bags is they're cheap and usually re-useable, which means if you have a lot of varieties you're trying to pre-sprout at the same time, let's say 8 different varieties of tomato seed, you can have a separate ziploc bag for each stashed away in very little space, and mark each one with an ordinary wax crayon so you'll know whether it's a Cherokee Purple or a Giant Belgium. Or whatever. (Not necessarily a consideration with beans, since most look so different from one another anyway.)

-- If all you're doing is a germination test, you want to declare a (somewhat arbitrary) stopping point anyway after you've found out, how many sprouted within five days? Eight? Fourteen? Et cetera...

...But if you're sprouting them with the intention of planting them, it's up to you to decide how soon to plant. It's often recommended to plant the whole batch as soon as the first few seeds have germinated, signified by the appearance of a little taproot coming out of one end. This is presuming that the others will be coming along shortly.

That's good advice for most people at most times. I like to let mine go a bit longer so I can be a bit more precise and economical with my planting. If, say, I've decided my bean or pea seeds are going to be planted about 2 inches apart and thinned to an average of about 4 inches apart, I can save myself some thinning by alternating already sprouted, unsprouted, already sprouted, etc. But that does mean I may have to be putting sprouts in the ground that already have fully developed little taproots, an inch or two of stem, and a pair of cotyledon leaves. Maybe even their first set of true leaves. Sprouts like that have to be handled like Faberge eggs. Very delicately and carefully. If they do already have leaves, it's okay to plant in such a way that the leaves are already above ground, but not if they're going to be exposed to harsh sunlight right away; if it's outdoors you're planting them, I'm sure creative minds can think of some way of giving them some partial shade for the first day or two.

PARENTHETICAL TO ALL OF THE ABOVE: If the homeschooling kids want to not only germinate some seeds, but plant them, in a month or two will be the perfect time to put out snap peas or snow peas, either of which tend to be immensely popular with kids. And if you want to try pre-sprouting your seeds between paper again, it might be fun to conduct a little experiment while you're at it:

... EXPERIMENTAL GROUP, half the seeds: After your first rinse, about 24 hours after the seeds are squirreled away in moist paper for the first time, lightly dust your freshly-rinsed paper with a pinch or two of finely powdered cinnamon.

-- CONTROL GROUP: Everything the same, but no cinnamon for the other half.

If you decide to try the experiment, please do let the rest of us know if you see a significant difference in mold growth, rotting seeds, etc., between the two groups. Minimum of 50 seeds per group recommended.

[Petronius_II]

POSTSCRIPT: I was busy writing the previous post while Loeb was posting his. I'd agree it's a nice simple project that may be perfectly appropriate for a seven-year-old. On the other hand... I'm just not really impressed with hydroponics, which I consider to be economically and ecologically wasteful, sooooo... I'm skeptical of the value of any project which may make hydroponics look easier than it actually is. Just as one example, if that bean sitting on the fabric doesn't have its water completely replaced on a regular basis, not just "topped off," well, that bean plant is going to be in a lot of trouble sooner than later.

...And on the OTHER other hand, if the judicious use of a little legume inoculant can be thrown into the "hydroponic bean" project, maybe it might be a good way to teach something about symbiosis, and the interconnectedness of nature, and all that...

That looks like a great idea for another, more successful project!

In science, no experiment is a failure if it teaches you something. If you carefully examine my previous post and figure out what you could've done better, and then prove it by actually doing it better, wellll... That's a pretty valuable lesson. But maybe our favorite species Solanum lycopersicon would be the best choice for a repeat of the "seeds in moist paper" project. Especially if the kid doesn't know so much yet about how great a nearly flawless homegrown heirloom beefsteak or salad tomato tastes... And if by the time he's ten or so he can pronounce words like "antioxidant" and "lycopene," and use them correctly, well then, he'll be a kid for the future.

[loeb]

Of course, we are learning something all the time Sometimes things that gone wrong are even more important, and giving more feedback information. It was not about hydroponics, it was about seeing the root system developing It is classical school exeriment here.. Same way with planting onions or hyacinth bulb. I'm not sure if symbiotic bacteria will live immersed in water. The thing is that in working with small children, it's nice to have things like they should be [plant alive] because they are waiting for this.. and they can have serious trouble with seeing something interesting in an experiment that didn't work. There is a way to do that experiment without "hydroponics", but technically it's harder - but well, may be worth it, more "nature-like". That is to place the soil between 2 near sheets of glass of clear plastic, and place the bean on it. Something like a hmm "ant-houses"? This is not popular toy here, and i don't like toys with living animals but for a bean it should be ok.. and if it's easy to take apart and clean it can be usefull to watch other plants root systems like grasses..[grains]. The most important thing in learning children is to touch their curiousity.. then they will learn themselves.

[Petronius_II]

The ant house as an educational tool for teaching something about botany? Sounds like a great idea to me.

(You see how long-winded I am by nature. I couldn't even write that first sentence without trying to include as many clauses and sub-clauses as I could get away with. )

[RobinB]

They plan the lessons like the kids have never seen a seed, never grown anything and have no idea where all that food in the grocery store comes from. This particular kid has seen mung beans sprout in a mason jar. He participates in planting and harvesting our garden, and loves to eat vegetables. I just have never pre-sprouted anything that I plan to plant in the garden. The directions in the lesson directed us to soak the beans overnight, wrap them in a paper towel and put them in a plastic bag... opened. No mention of rinsing (which I do with the mung beans ... duhhh.) I love the idea of a bean "ant farm"... brilliant!

[Petronius_II]

I'm not sure if symbiotic bacteria will live immersed in water.

Neither am I, but I sure would like to know.

[loeb]

But symbiotic bacteria will live in a ant house, that's soil If it does not have an ant in it, it can be really usefull;D
If you are going to use it, it's good to put the thing in a box[to cover the glass], because the sunlight will stimulate the algae bloom on a glass inside, ant it will blur the image. If it is pulled out for watching only, and not in constant sunlight, algae should not grow.
There is another experiment with earthworms possible to do with this, and the creature survives If you want I can describe it, maybe on PM would be the better place


edit: lol, I just realized that Bakers Creek have my bean in their offer this year, but what they have is polluted strain. http://rareseeds.com/vegetablesa-c/b...bush-bean.html And true Soldier Bean should be more this: http://www.adaptiveseeds.com/sites/d...evonallen1.jpg Black not red, and the figure is a bit different It has very romantic story behind, If someone would like to know I can translate it And it is officialy listed as tradicional product in my country.. I wonder maybe I should write to them.. The proper name is :Eagle bean: "fasola z orzełkiem =bean with an Eagle" aka ;Independence bean; and it should look like that: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/eaglebean.jpg/

[stonysoilseeds]

i was very impressed with gold of bacau pole bean i used them fresh they sold very well at my farmers market people bought them for stews and told me they were very delicious and waxy tasting this year i am trying the red cranberry pole and growing kentucky wonder aain i would like trying more varieties as i defenitely prefer pole beans to bush beans