Got a tranplant question

[peapod]

Hello...
I feel like its been a gazillion years since I've actually participated on here. Life has been a tad busy of late.

I read an article some where in which I cannot remeber where someone started their snap beans indoors and then transplanted after the expected last frost date to have really early beans. I am always up for fun in the garden... anyone ever done this and if you have how did it work out for you. I live in a short growing season... how do fresh snap (eating) beans transplant and if at all? Of course I'll try a few just curious.

Its also nice to thinking about planting in such a few short weeks.

Been a looooong winter

[robertb]

I always start mine in pots then transplant. It works fine, but don't plant too early. If they get too big they end up horribly tangled!

[grunt]

michelle: We did ours in individual paper pots last year, and it worked very well. Don't try and extend your growing season too long with this though, or you will end up breaking some of the roots that have grown through the paper pots when you go to transplant. start them just far enough ahead of your last frost date that they have the first true leaves developed to transplant out then. If the soil is still too cool for direct seeding beans, it still won't hurt your transplants = they will just wait until it is warm enough before they re-commence growing. Even just getting them sprouted will give you an edge, because that seems to prevent them rotting, even if the soil is a bit cool.

[robertb]

It's worth doing in a cool climate. The earliest I could possibly get away with direct planting would be late May, under cloches. that would be a problem with climbing beans, which I grow up wigwams, but would work if I put in a row of dwarf beans. If I plant in pots, under cover, then I can start them a good month earlier.

[hiven]

I transplant my early beans too, start sowing 4 weeks before last frost either in root trainers or in deep coffee cups (those plastic single disposable type). I tend to sow early for bush beans and runner beans (both bush and poles as they can take cool but no frost). In fact I also sow my broadbeans and some bush peas this way from February, now they are ready to be plant out. I will direct sow pole beans from May onwards, by then it will be a second crop. for certain bush beans.

[kathm]

Like robertb - who also lives in the UK, I sow mine in pots, both the climbing and the dwarf. I use 3" pots so the plants form a good individual rootball that doesn't get too disturbed at planting out time. It not only gets the plants away a bit quicker - good in cooler climes - but it gives some protection from slugs as the plants are good and strong when they go out.

[galina]

Like Grunt, Robertb and Kathm I transplant all my beans and also peas routinely. Beans are best planted out at the two true sets of leaves stage. Individual paper pots or even toilet roll inner cardboard tubes are good for sowing into indoors, or the commercial product rootrainers.

After planting out (and firming in to avoid windrock, especially in cardboard/paperpots) each bean plant gets a cut-off plastic drinks bottle as a minicloche. However a group of newly planted beans can also be protected with frostcloth/fleece/remay if nibbling mice are not a problem.

Transplanting is a must in our climate where the last frost date can be as late as early June. We also have heavy clay soil and seeds tend to rot (especially white bean seeds which are more prone to rot). As we also have a hungry mouse population with a definite liking for pea and bean seeds, it all adds up to transplanting legumes to ensure a crop.

[robertb]

I keep the mice down with poison; since I had an empty beehive chewed out by rats one winter I've been pretty hot on rodents. They're always around (both house and wood mice), but normally I can get away with putting peas and beans on the top shelf of the mini greenhouses. A few years ago, I had a frost on June 16th.

[flowerpower]

Michele, I start all my beans about 2 wks before I can plant in the ground. I use big 6 in plastic pots. The roots have plenty of room & they are easy to separate for transplanting. I will do both bush and pole beans this way. I rarely lose a plant.

[bunkie]

we also use the homemade paper pots. this year i'm experimenting with some in root trainers.

[raymondo]

I think I'll try this with a couple of cowpeas that are marginal in my climate. I would absolutely love to get fresh seed from them and this sounds like it might be the way.

[peapod]

You all are always so nice to me and I am so grateful for the information! I had heard for many years of folks starting beans early in pots weather it be paper or plastic or what have you! I use, from youtube, an oragami type folded newspaper pot most years! I also re-use the black plastic flats until they are no longer usable and beyone any duct tape reapair.

I think that since the past two years have been so cold here in Mn I will try to pot my beans early and I think I'll take an average of 2.5 weeks to 3 weeks prior to the last frost date. Now according to the Old Farmers Almanac it will be yet another cold spring here in SW MN along with a drought not as bad as last season but...

With all this wonderful new found info on beans... I am so happy by the way! I will start both pole and bush beans(Favas too) early in my paper pots and see how they do. I am sure they will do well.

The biggest reason I asked this question- is due to last seasons weather I lost 2-200 foot rows of beans. How one may be wondering. It rained on my beans for 3 weeks then we got a hard freeze. Thats not good for beans. Its good for something but not beans. 400 feet of beans lost like many things lost in gardening- its just one of those things that happens. I am hoping to avoid some rotting beans this year.

Thanks everyone I really appreciate all of your help and knowledge. Funny I've been gardening my entire life and still have yet so much to learn and I love it.

Michelle

[peapod]

And Hiven I love your dating agency idea. Squash and Several other Veggies! I love it.

[tuttamatta]

Last spring (2009) I started some snap peas, Spring Blush that I got from Rebsie, in origami paper pots; the seeds were so precious to me that I decided to go one step forward: I purchased some copper sheets from a local craft store (of course I used my 40% off coupon......)and then cut pieces about 3"X 2" or enough to roll the copper into a fat straw and after my peas germinated and grew a few inches I put the copper "straws" around them and then placed into the ground.
So I did not have to "transplant", only "relocate" and the main reason for doing this was to prevent the slugs from eating my precious seedlings!
And it did work!!!!!!!!!This year I got a little lazy....and did not start them in paper pots, but I did direct seeding sticking my copper straws into the ground and placing one seed inside instead, well, they did come up and are doing O.K. but since I had to leave my copper straws a bit open it was not as foolproof as last year, they are getting a little munched, but still better that no copper; next year I'll go back to the way I did it originally, maybe a littke more work but worth it.
Paola

[grunt]

Paola: If you can get hold of one of those copper pot scrubbers, and unravel it or cut it into strips, they are even easier to work with, and they do work. Or get hold of some light copper wire (not transformer windings = they are coated with lacquer and the slugs will ignore them) and braid a bracelet to put around the plant base.