Kitchen Garden Forum

Ok, so i've planted up a load of dwarf French Beans in the greenhouse in pots to start them off. They were planted on/around 5/3/09 and so far i've got 3 shoots germinating out of 50 2" pots that I planted in fresh new growbag compost.

I used Johnboys method but haven't got a clue what's happend again to my French beans. Happens every year (the same with peas) plant them, love them, care for them and the barstewards don't grow.

Any tips please.........cos i'm really confused

Hi Lizzie,
Are you sure that the beans are still in the pots? I suspect that the mice may have had a hand in all of this as they will pinch the whole bean.
I should have a poke about to see if the bean seed is still in the pot.
This year I have had a great problem with mice in the tunnels and have had to make growing cages using aviary wire netting of the smallest sized holes. The mice were actually getting through 1cm x 1cm wire netting!
I lost all of my first sowing of dwarf Beans. The mice absolutely love the dwarf bean cotyledons and you are left with a bare stalk.
I pre-germinate all my beans and as soon as the radicle begins to appear they get planted. This method has been very successful over the years.
The beans are all then placed scar down. The radicle appears to the side of the scar and then grows straight down forking out as it grows.
JB.

Dear Lizzie, i was thinking more along the lines of maybe the compost is too damp and they have rotted.
As Johnboy has already said, if you have a little poke about, you should see whats going on.

My thought was similar to OH's.
What was the temperature in the greenhouse? If the temperature is below 13C/57F french beans often rot in wet, cold compost instead of germinating.
As Johnboy says, have a poke around in the pots.

Hi Lizzie,

I had the same problem (i planted mine on the 14/2/09) and assumed that i had kept the soil too damp and they had rotted but as i grow in toilet roll tubes and had some peas growing next to them i didn't move them at all.

We've had a couple of warm days here during this week and when i wenmt in to check on the plants last night all but 1 of the Dwarf French seeds have now come up. So there's hope yet for yours too.

An apology ,
I regret to say that the netting I mentioned earlier should have been 1.5cm x 1.5cm but has now been replaced by 1cm x 1 cm netting.
So sorry to confuse you all.
What is amazing is that a mouse can solicit a bean seed from a pot without it appears even moving the soil. The same as a Squirrel can plant up to 4 Hazel Nuts into a pot and leave no trace. I have grown hundreds of involuntary Hazels over the years!
JB.

Johnboy wrote:What is amazing is that a mouse can solicit a bean seed from a pot without it appears even moving the soil. The same as a Squirrel can plant up to 4 Hazel Nuts into a pot and leave no trace. I have grown hundreds of involuntary Hazels over the years!
JB.

I didn't know that, that's amazing.

i now put all pots or trays of beans in large plastic srorage containers, with glass over the top. , the containers are about a foot deep so the glass can go back on at night untill the leaves touch it, by which time the plants are too big to suffer from mice.
ive found if i sow early enough for cold wet rotting to be a problem the plants that do grow get too big too soon and get hit by a frost cos they were planted out too early...

I sow peas and beans in root trainers then put the plastic lids on. I put them on a cut down pallet under the greenhouse staging. The plastic lids keep out visitors and stop them getting too wet when I water the staging above.

I would have thought that sowing french beans in mid February or early March was a mistake. Without some heat they are likely to rot. If they do grow, they can't be planted out until after the last frost (end of May/early June?).
I sow mine (climbing varieties for the polytunnel) in the third week of April; they usually come up very quickly and are planted mid-May.
As with so many things, sowing too early leads to problems and not an earlier crop. Last year they were ready for first picking early July.
I'm not suggesting my dates are the right ones - in fact I might risk sowing earlier for inside - it's just that I sow to coincide with when the space for planting will be available. Beans for outside I sow third week in May - which I find is soon enough for me.

I agree with you, Alan, it seems awfully early to sow French beans, Lizzie. If your greenhouse is unheated, I would think the seeds might have rotted away because they were too cool and damp. Even sowing later, I find that if I start the French bean seeds out in heat (that is, in the house), then they are ok a bit cooler once they have properly germinated.

So I would start again, Lizzie, but keeping the seeds warmer, at least until they have germinated. Because you can't plant them out before the last frost, anyway.

Good Evening Johnboy,

Johnboy wrote:Hi Lizzie,

I pre-germinate all my beans and as soon as the radicle begins to appear they get planted. This method has been very successful over the years.
The beans are all then placed scar down. The radicle appears to the side of the scar and then grows straight down forking out as it grows.
JB.

Very interesting, my I ask how do you pre-germinate your bean seeds? in damp compost in a bag for a few days or like parsnips on damp paper? I can't see how the latter would work as well as the bean seed is a lot thicker than parsnip seed

Sorry if this has been covered already, but I often start of beans in a seed sprouter, then just sow the ones that germinate most strongly into root trainers.

There's quite a marked difference between how quickly some of them get going. It always strikes me that if I'd sown one of the slow ones directly, it might have taken a long time to catch up & used up a valuable root trainer slot. However the main trick is as other have advised - start them off away from the destination site & any pesky mice!

Despite the best advice of others above, I currently have some dwarf Borlotti beans that are around 5" high and have been sat outside for the last week. I will plant them under fleece and appreciate this is taking a bit of a risk, but I think I'm stuck with this now

Hi Donedigging,
You pays your money and takes your chance! Both methods work equally well. To use the same method as germinating Parsnips you corrugate the tissue and slot the beans, scar down, in the corrugations and cover with about 4 layers of moist tissue.
Here it is not worth planting out anything tender before the end of the first week in June so sowings are calculated on that time.
To my way of thinking it is better to be a little late than too early.
Patience is a virtue! Sadly too many of our contributors are too eager and lack this virtue. Timing is everything where growing is concerned.
JB.

Morning Johnboy

Timing is everything where growing is concerned

How very true, and how hard to convince people

Your advice should be writ large at the top of all the growing forums.