Beans & Peas

Innoculate
I didn't purchase any but the seed packets said I need this. Is this sold at stores like Lowes or will I have to buy from a Burpees type store?
Rose

There are a few places that sell locally but you have to search. Have not used it for years as it never did anything for me. Some people swear by it, but I don't know any large scale growers that use it.

I never use it either. Tried it years ago and, like Farmerdill, didn't notice any difference.

I'm only going to plant a couple so maybe I should just skip it. I'm doing the square foot gardening in raised boxes.
Thanks for your help.

I've never used it and have had no problems. I bought some this year though, and I'm going to try some plants with and some plants without it and take some pics.

I haven't used it either and have good results.

usually it comes in big amounts that need to be used per lb of beans and peas. I have some, but have never used it . I don't do 5 lbs of beans an peas LOL ,yeah didn't read that part on the package . duh
and i am not good at math either :(

Last year I tried some innoculant for the first time. Put some peas in with the stuff, and others without - same with the beans when it came time to sow them. As far as I could tell the ones WITHOUT the innoculant actually did better than the ones where I used it!

I don't use any innoculant and my beans and peas thrive.

However, I do start them by soaking them overnight in water with some blood meal in it, and then pouring the water with the blood meal over them once they are sown in.

My beans are going to be ready for their first picking this weekend, and the peas should be ready by next weekend. And there are tons of beans that are getting huge.

Thanks for the advice. I would rather try that method.
Rose

Glad to help. As one who loves my beans and peas, I encourage everyone to grow them. *grin*

Now I just have to remember to bring the beans inside to cook them and share with my husband, rather than just eating them straight off the bush.....

how much blood meal per gallon of water?

That's a hard question. I sort of do the "well, that looks about right" approach.

I can make a vague estimate of what I did, and let you kind of go from there.

Since I have a small garden, I didn't need very much in the way of beans (well, relatively little), so I put about 4 cups of beans into a very large mixing bowl. I then put what looked like about a cup of blood meal, and around 8-10 cups of water - enough to cover the beans and add about 1" on top of them - give or take.

Because blood meal is not a fertilizer that will burn the seed, it won't matter if you put too much in there. I would probably be a LOT more careful if I was working with the more chemically active stuff, but blood meal doesn't hurt things so if I OD the plants, it just sits there and waits to be used.

Hope this helps!

4 CUPS of beans? My goodness! I just planted 12 bean seeds last year and had lots of beans. 'Course, there's just me to eat them... fresh, frozen and/or canned...

I'm wishing the rain would stop so I can get the beans and peas set up!

12 bean plants? Nowhere near enough!

Of course, this round I'm doing bush beans because I was too lazy to put up a trellis, and wanted to see what would happen, so that would explain the major discrepancy there. I bet if I had used pole style, I too would be enjoying a ton of beans from a minimum of plants.

I think that next year I will be putting in poles.....

Hastur, here's a new short fence I put up last week for peas. It ties into a tall (9') fence I used for my beans, and the beans topped that fence! I grew Kentucky Wonders, picked them all summer through autumn... and could have had another mess of them if I had picked again before they froze. I would estimate I picked 3-4 bushels total, maybe more because friends picked some... Actually I only had 9 bean plants in the ground, I gave 3 away.

Wow, wow, and wow. I planted a few Kentucky Wonder in hanging pots last year, and they were great, but not that kind of productive.

I am so very much switching to them, in the ground next year. If I can get half that kind of productivity, I'll be ecstatic.

I'm still happy with my little ones this year, though. I got my first harvest off the bed, and it's very tasty. Not to mention that I am going to be spending a bunch of time tonight blanching the beans to freeze them (there were a lot of beans on this harvest, and I can tell that next week will be another big harvest). But if I can get this kind of production off of a few plants.... Yeah, one more thing to try, definitely.

Thank you!

You are welcome... here's an article I wrote for DG about them...
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1558/

Great article!