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| Germinating 10 year old bean seeds. 6.1.5.16 |
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| Rinsed Germinating Bean Seeds. 6.15.16 |
Ning had some old bean seeds. I've been keeping them in the basement in plastic containers. These are a Chinese variety, wide bean similar to Romas but with thicker pods. They are not squeaky like most green beans.
The seeds are 3 types. There is a dark brown seed, a light brown seed with darker markings, and a white seed.
I have tried to locate new seeds, but can't find the variety. At the saturday market, we did buy some once at a Chinese vegetable stand.
I decided to try to germinate the seeds. There might be 400 seeds. I did not count. I used the wet paper towel method.
None grew the first week. The second week there were some sprouts, and some seeds rotted. I rinsed all of the seeds in a sieve, planted the sprouted seeds, and incubated the remainder for additional several days using fresh wet paper towel and fresh zipper plastic bag. Then I repeated the sorting, rinsing, planting, and incubate for additional time. Now, about 2 weeks having passed, about 40 seeds have sprouted. It's possible they won't all get to the green leaf stage, since there was some rotting of dead seads. The purpose of the rinsing is to remove as much detrimental bacterial life, as possible.
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| Bean Seedlings. 6.15.16 |
These will get special planting and treatment when they have their first true leaves. I intend to save a few dozen seeds, so we have fresh seeds next year.
Seeds are on sale at Fred Meyer for 40% off. This is a big savings, and no postage and shipping for mail order. So, it's a good time to get seeds for next year. One year old seeds of these varieties should grow fine. I chose types that have been successful for me, or look interesting.
