A question about beans

I was reading up on a thread about vegetable scraps and I started thinking about beans. Beans are a hearty (and hardy) food source that are apparently pretty easy to grow.
Here's a quick overview about types of beans, where they grow best and how to cultivate them:
www.motherearthnews.com...

I have a question though. Does anyone know if you can take stor bought beans (like a bag of dried beans), rehydrate them and then plant them?

I HAVE had some grow from store bags - but - the germination rate was extremely low, like 1-5% (I tried 13 different ones.)

I'd suggest just getting bean seeds from a farm co-op store or other store where you can buy seed in bulk or from heirloom seed companies or heirloom seed exchanges.

reply to post by MrCipher


Yes, you can. Dried beans you buy at the store can be planted and grown. They grow fast and are easy to tend to. Just make sure you have something set up for the vines to grow on (fencing, string some wires across a few sturdy poles, etc.).

Edit: An easy way to germinate- lay dried beans spaced apart on wet towel and cover with clear plastic to hold in the moisture.

beans are very easy to grow .if you want to try and grow store bought, place them in a damp piece of paper towel and set in some partially sunny spot and see if they sprout. do not soak them in order to rehydrate them, that will just kill any germination that would take place. as with most garden foods, only plant the same kind of beans in a row and space them as far away from other kinds, in order to prevent cross pollination .

reply to post by IsawWHATtheyDID


Fantastic response. Thank you for the step-by-step.

reply to post by littled16


Thank you

reply to post by MrCipher


Your welcome! It is my pleasure to be of service!

Great question, great responses. I am going to try this. It would be nice to try and sprout a store bought bean. I know that I read seed packets for hardiness zones and stuff but I find it fascinating that I maybe able to grow from what I have in storage.

Beans are a magical fruit.

and just go buy some seeds, not that expensive.

Coriander and celery seed can be planted as well. And that bunch of green onions, if you cut the root end off leaving a bit of the white and plant it, it will propagate as well. A friend of mine swears by the dried beans. Haven't tried it, but she share "greasy grit" beans with me, and they look like White northerns but you eat pod and all. All my seeds are in ziplocks in the freezer and I pulled just what I need. Next year will have enough to plant for eating and seed saving.
Good luck and let us know how they sprout!

reply to post by MrCipher

Absolutely! I do it all the time.
Speaking of beans, I just got in an order of beans called "Scarlet Runner Beans". They are a perennial, living up to seven years in temperate climates. They are fast growing. The blooms, the young pods, the roots, and the dried beans from mature pods are all edible.

The vine can grow to two meters or more in length, the green pods are edible whole before they become fibrous, and the seeds can be used fresh or as dried beans. The starchy roots are still eaten by Central American Indians.

Wikipedia - Scarlet Runner

I highly recomend you just buy heirloom beans from a legitimate seed company with a good selection of heirloom seeds. I personally like rhshumway but you can occasionally get some cool non gmo seed from amazon. Can you just plant store bought beans? Yes but your germination rate will be severely lower than if you just ordered from a seed company. There are way too many factors for store bought beans to be reliable. The type of bean, how much chemicals it was exposed to in its life (fungicide/pesticide/herbicide), the temperature it is being stored at, if it is even genetically capable of reproducing for more than 1 generation, ect all factor into whether it will germinate or not.


Personally i grow rattlesnake pole beans and purple podded pole beans. Btw, pole means climbing. If you are going for climbing beans rather than bush beans, I suggest you plant it with corn. Let the bean climb around the corn stalk. The bean puts nitrogen in the soil which helps the corn grow. Plus it makes more food per unit of space. You can just let it climb up a stick, but a corn stalk will provide you with corn ears to eat which a stick cannot.

I just read a really interesting article about fermenting beans. Beans were ground up into flour and fermented in sterilized water for 96 hours. After that period of time, the protein in the beans became more biologically available, and the anti-nutrients were diminished. I think it would be a good idea to get a book on fermentation and become knowledgeable about it to increase your ability to survive.

Article Title: Influence of Natural and Controlled fermentations on a-galactosides, antinutrients, and protein digestibility of beans
Journal Title: Internat'l Journal of Food Science and Technology
Date: April 2008

Sal