Sowing Beans Indoors
 

I had no beans last year. Birds went to town on the seeds. Whatever seeds that managed to get unscathed, birds went and had Bean Leaf Salad.

Going to sow all my beans indoors once I get the tomatoes off the lights.
Transplant them when they are 18-24 inches tall...

Be curious, anyone else sow your beans indoors

I grew six pole bean seeds indoors to about 28". It was a long season bean that would never reach fruition in my area. They transplanted easily, but weren't very tasty.

i have done so in the past, and will be doing so this year. beans need warm soil to germinate. problem here is warm soil doesn't happen here sometimes till later june.
i like to grow pole beans which take longer to produce than bush beans, but once they get going, they go. last year, most of my beans did not germinate due to cold rainy weather. this is third week of june, beans aren't growing.

plan on starting your beans 2 weeks before plant out. start too early, beans will get too big, and transplant shock can set them back.
pay attention to the weather. one year i started beans in doors then planted them outside just before we had high 80 degree weather for a number of days. beans just sat there for nearly a month, not growing, not dying, just stuck. so much for getting a head start that year.
water them well, and keep them watered until they establish themselves, and you should be good to go. watch out for wabbits. dose pesky wabbits like beans.


keith

I pop them on an indoor windowsill and transplant them when they're 3 inches or higher. Otherwise slugs eat them

I haven't needed to start my beans inside, but I always grow cukes/zukes/melons in newspaper pots to avoid transplant shock :) .

Linda

I pre-germinate my early peas and beans, and have started beans indoors successfully on many occasions! Go for it!

I've started them in newspaper pots under a cold frame on the deck. Got a head start because the soil was too soggy to be worked. I planted them pots and all when they were about 6 inches tall. Worked well.

Old tea leaves have deterred slugs for me.

I start all my seedlings indoors - in the windows and under lights. I have successfully grown pole Lima beans in the winter in my sunny kitchen and they produced pods and seeds. I didn't eat them as I was just growing them for seeds.

The soil outside on Vancouver Island stays colder until June plus this is Pest Island and so many critters, large and small, just love my seedlings. So, I give them a really good start indoors, gradually get them used to staying outside and then either put them into the soil on the sunny side of my house in June or I put them into planters to protect them from the slugs, earwigs, pill and sow bugs, etc and they never actually get put into the ground. This has worked very well for me but requires a lot of attention for watering, etc.

How fast does the root on beans go. Never have sown indoors. But I'm planning to do a easy 150+

Was planning to just do them in blueberry containers - let them get somewhat big so they will have a better chance than last year. Otherwise, I'll just solo cup it all..

I pre-start the beans in damp paper towels and when the first roots sprout I then move them into either cardboard milk cartons turned sideways or cardboard sugar containers. These are lined with wax and they don't leak when watered. I put about 15 beans in each one and they can stay in there quite a long time as long as they are kept watered and in good light. When I transplant them, I just cut open one side of the container and separate the beans into whatever I am using next - either the soil in the ground or larger planters. I always use rhyzobia bacteria powder on the sprouted seeds as I put them into the containers and I use the Pro-Mix Vegetable and Herb soil mix as my starter soil.

A bean is one plant that can handle all sorts of abuse and a very good way to get a jump start on the season.


As for cucumbers and such let the plants get root bound before you transplant and you wont have problems at all.
Just dont try to separate them.




Worth

Right now I'm trying to germinate some Piekny Jas that were bought in a Polish deli. I'm another that pre-starts in damp paper towel. Being I don't know how old these beans are I'm trying something a little different. After two attempts with my usual methods with about 8-10 beans and only getting one to germinate, this last time I placed the dampened paper towel (water with a drop of liquid fertilizer) on a small pie plate. The beans are laid out so they don't touch each other and turned a couple of times a day. They are enclosed in a clear plastic bag with air blown in to keep it tented, they're sitting on the kitchen counter where they get lots of light.

Started on Sunday I noticed this morning 2 had germinate so they are now in pots on the windowsill. Now to wait and see if they are the real deal, they should be runners but there's a possibility they might be limas. If limas not all is lost I have a sample of Piekny Jas (runners) coming in the mail.

Hi Brightmeadow, hopefully we'll have a better growing year, it's about time maybe ???? we'll get a bit of spring before summer arrives but not holding my breath....

Annette

I soak mine 24 hours in a Dixie cup or small bowls. I have a small squirt bottle with
peroxide and vinegar, 20% each, 60% water. Spritz, wait a few minutes, rinse and top
with at least twice the volume of water as they will swell at least twice their size.

I grow year round for salads so I do this once a week.

For the garden I use all the tricks I've read about. I soak them the same way, then
plant a dense row, water in, then cover with a long board actually a few. About 4-5
inches wide. I'll get about 60% from direct seeded. Fine in complete darkness for up to
a week. The board keeps a few pests out and in heavy storms they are protected from
soggy soils and wash-outs. About a third of those first soaked seeds I pot in soilless mix
in the barn and plant the next week along with another direct seeded row....re-peat.

Same with early Spring peas but those I direct seed once a week for 4-5 weeks.
When the boards comes off I cover with bird netting or row cover until established.
Once mine are up 6inches or so, nothing bothers them at all.

I buy 'big boy' packets, 8oz-lb, so I have plenty seed and many varieties.

If I sprinkle cayenne pepper in the soil and direct sow, will the birds still come ;--/

I usually start about 100 plants indoors, using 16 ounce plastic drinking cups with a few drainage slits cut into the bottom, filled with regular garden soil. The plants go outside during the day (in good weather), and inside at night. I transplant at about 3-4 weeks. I never have any problems.

Interesting responses sofar. I've never done beans indoors as it's so easy to do it outside. Drop, move over 1 1/2, drop another seed, rinse and repeat.

After last years fiasco and the birds winning, I'm trying something ~new~

I've had so many great years in the past and then, bam, soggy wet Spring and I get
seed too wet and moldy....or birds or drought. I don't have much real estate to start a
bunch of seed far in advance...or the time. But to ensure a decent harvest I do the few
things that work. And lots of extra insurance sowing.

Hi Annette: Yes, hopefully it will warm up and STOP raining soon. If only we got some of this rain during the summer months. Good luck germinating more of those bean seeds - great idea for old bean seeds. I received the Tutelo beans last week and they are very pretty. They are pictured in William Woys Weaver's new edition of his Heirloom Vegetable Gardening but are incorrectly identified on page 76 as the white and gray beans. They are the reddish striped ones. Our library system has this new book.
Shirley

[QUOTE=mobiledynamics;696287]If I sprinkle cayenne pepper in the soil and direct sow, will the birds still come ;--/[/QUOTE]

Birds have very few taste buds. Hot peppers don't faze them. (I've been kissed by a parrot right after she ate a hot pepper... burnt lips!)

Nan

I sow all my pole beans indoors in 3" peat pots and transplant them outdoors after 3-4 weeks of growing when the 10-day forecast doesn't show any lows below 40 degrees F. Nothing ever bothers them when they are this tall- not sure why you are thinking about growing them so tall.

I also direct seed a row of Provider in early May or when the soil is warm enough for a week or two of beans before the pole beans kick in.

Because I grow beans for dry seed, I use a lot of bean transplants each year. With my short summers, every extra day added to the growing season can be the difference between success & failure - especially for limas. If I am unable to plant on time due to weather (a common occurrence in recent years), I seed transplants instead, and little time is lost. And even if I direct seed on time, I start a few transplants of each variety anyway, as backups... those backups saved my seed crops the last two years.

Transplants are also handy when starting with a small sample (when every seed must count), or when trying to revive old seed.

In areas with warmer, longer seasons, bean transplants would probably be unnecessary - unless it was to avoid seedling loss due to bugs or critters. In my climate, transplants are indispensable.

Great idea Zeedman. I should start some Christmas Limas inside and get a jump on the season! I did get lima beans when I grew them a couple of years ago, but I could get MORE this way ;).

How many weeks before plant-out would you start them?

Linda

Bean seedlings need strong light immediately after germination, or they quickly become leggy... so how early you plant them, depends upon the availability of a warm, sunny place to move them to. I germinate them indoors about 2 weeks before the recommended direct-seeding date, then move them into a solar greenhouse. Temps are USUALLY warm enough in the greenhouse by then. On warm days, I put the trays of seedlings out into full sun - but bring them back into the greenhouse at night (I've got deer).

If you intend to start beans earlier than 2 weeks ahead, then give them a large enough container to keep them from becoming root bound.

I always start my beans early in the little greenhouse I have. Seems silly to start beans early down here with our warm weather but they are so sensitive to frost and they don't produce as well once it gets really hot. By starting them early in the greenhouse I avoid the risk of a late frost which we had this year and I put them in the ground when they are about 8 inches tall when it is finally safe to plant them. That way I get a few more days of production before the extreme heat starts slowing them down. My plants are all full of blooms with small beans on most of them already. Had I waited until time to plant them in the ground they would only be an inch or two tall now.

Bill

I start my pole beans early as we live in a short season area. Does anyone else clip the tops if they get too long and tangled (usually because the weather has taken a two week turn for the worse)? Have found it works very well, getting multiple stems as it were.

Never really sowed beans indoors till this year. I put various ones in different trays - not seperate plugs/cups/packs. What I'm learned is that the roots grow big and they grow fast....I literally transplanted them out into soil after sowing them indoors for 4-5 days as the beans just took off. Removing them to not damage roots, individual planting them since there were bare root was quite a chore !

Been monitoring the beans and sofar, aside from a couple of losses (probably due to transplant and root mess up), I've lost a handful of them but I still have 100+ so plenty to go around. Birds don't seem to be interested in my beans so far.

Back to direct sowing next year. It was ALOT of work on knees replanting the bare rooted beans since I did not do individual plugs.