On Jun 11, 8:02�am, "Nancy Young" > wrote:
> Cookseasonal wrote:
> > On Jun 11, 12:34 pm, "Nancy Young" > wrote:
> >> Two hours later, I do not lie, I looked again and see some
> >> weird disturbance in the earth, all these mounds of soils.
> >> Damn, did something dig up my beans??
>
> >> No. �I moved a piece of dirt aside and there it was, a bean
> >> plant! �By the next morning they were an inch high. �Freaky!!
> > Yeah, it is fun watching them. If you plant the beans after soaking
> > them for some 12 hours, they will pop out of the ground within a day,
> > if the weather is warm and sunny.
>
> Thanks! �I don't know why I didn't think of that, I have soaked
> other seeds. �I just followed the directions on the packet.
>
> > Do you have climbers? If not: Make
> > sur eyou get plnety of air between the plants, otherwise a few warm
> > moist days will make the stems start to rot.
>
> Thanks for that tip. �I planted them according to directions and
> now I have to thin the plants. �These are the bush type.

Yes, thin them. Actually if each seed is spaced according to
directions there's no need to thin, beans typically all germinate so
there's really no need to plant extra, and bean seedlings don't
transplant well, so it's best to just toss them. At first it may seem
that there is too much space between plants but they will grow rapidly
to fill in all empty space... and you'll have a larger more robust
crop when plants are spaced a bit further apart instead of crowded, in
other words you will get more from fewer plants, it's false economy to
plant any vegetables close together thinking you'll get more per
space, you wont, and it will also be more difficult to harvest and
you'll miss a lot of beans on crowded plants. Once they begin to put
out beans harvest every day, even twice a day. Beans grow very
quickly, so what looks like a 1" long bean in the morning will be
ready to pick 24 hours later... pick when 3-4 inches long and no
more... you'll have better quality beans and more of them, the more
you pick the more the plant will put out... plants are merely trying
to reproduce, if you allow the fruits to become too mature so that
they go to seed the plant will go into a done-its-job mode and cease
further production. Smaller/less mature beans will be much easier to
prepare, they wouldn't have developed those pesky strings yet which
presents most of the prep labor to remove, the seeds will not have
matured either, so very little cooking will be needed... green beans
less than 3" can be quickly stir fried... 2" beans can be used raw in
salads. Just pinch off the stem (use no knife), always leave the
pointy end. During peak production period (about 4 weeks) one packet
of seed gives me 10 pounds of young beans every day... you'll need
people to share, you'll get tired of eating them. No matter how
diligent your harvesting regimen you will still miss a lot. Those 6"
beans can be de-strung and sliced into 1" lengths and frozen in zip-
locs, they are great in winter stews as they hold up well to long slow
cooking.