I have a few plants growing from seed, but I have gotten extremely varied reports of how tall the plants will be and how much room these need. Do they need a trellis or support? Can they be grown in a large container? Do they need any special soil or amendments?
Can anyone give me any hints or tips?
Thanks to everyone : ) Jennifer
Is anyone growing edamame? I have some questions . . .
Edamame is just an edible soybean. They are a bushy plant, about the same size as a bush bean or bush lima bean. They take a relatively long time to make (about 80 day for the earliest cultivars) but other wise grow like like regular bush or bush lima beans.
I suppose you can grow them in a large container if there were only a couple of plants. The harvest is not like beans in that edamame are harvested all at once. I pull the entire plant and sit and pick off the pods. In my opinion they were very easy to grow and needed nothing more than steady watering if grown in good soil. The plants started to look a little raggedy and yellowing right before they were ready to harvest so maybe I needed a side dressing mid season.
Thanks for the reminder to grow some this year! Seeds are not readily available so I will have to order some. I have grown beer friend, toyha and green legend. No one better than the other that I remember.
What variety are you growing?
-Kim
I have no idea. Is "Gylcine Mix" a variety? That is the only thing on the envelope other than Edamame. I can't wait to harvest these!
Glycine Max is the Latin name for soybean without the cultivar. At least it says Edamame implies it is for eating fresh. Update us on the harvest when the time comes around.
I sure will.
When would be the best time to start them up north? Since they take so long and we have a shortish (compared to MOST OF YOU!) growing season, can they be started indoors???
(Sorry for budding in, but this is one of the topics I was about to post about. Thanks for the piggy-back ride!)
This message was edited Mar 2, 2008 3:12 PM
Direct sow after your last frost date. Since yield per plant is low, I would think a poor candidate for starting inside and transplanting. I suppose it would depend somewhat on how many you want.
Thank you!
edited because I can't spell OR type today!
This message was edited Mar 2, 2008 3:13 PM
Bluekat, I picked up a pack of the Butterbean cultivar at the end of February at Dutch Plant Farm in Frederick. Around how much can you get from 1 plant. I was going to play around with a couple plants this year, but in containers like I grow my peppers. I know it says to stagger the planting so they aren't all ready at once if you want to eat them fresh. I wanted to start some inside, but the package says it's not recommended. Thought I'd try anyway, why not?
A couple of good appetizer servings if you eat them from the pod is my guess on the yield of one plant. I prefer not to stagger them because I pull them all at once, blanch and freeze them. I have started them in cells and transplanted no big deal except they germinate and grow way too big for the cell very quickly!
I'm the only one who eats them, so I imagine I'll be freezing the majority of them. Something for me to think about. This is all experimental to me :-)