Beans as Transplants

According to everything I’ve ever read, beans are supposed to be difficult to transplant. However, that has not been the case here in my raised beds located in southwestern Missouri...

Note that I’m also pushing the season for these guys, a bit, when we are still not past the last average frost date of April the 15th. But, since I was experimenting with Great Northern Beans (purchased at a local grocery), I figured what the heck. My recent experiment involved using a wet paper towel, onto which I had placed ten beans, to see if they would germinate. After just 48 hours they all did and rather than throw them out, I elected to plant them out into one of my small raised beds. Well, as you can see, they are actually growing. Encouraged by this, now I hope to raise them to maturity to see if they are a pole or bush variety. If they turn out to be bush beans, I then plan to sow more later this spring directly into a four foot square area. I should be able to produce about 36 plants spaced equally about six inches apart. I want to get a feel for how many dried beans I can produce and what they would weigh. From that information, I could formulate how many bean plants would need to be grown to meet the needs of one person for one year. That is assuming that this hypothetical person also has a supply of rice or other foods to combine with the beans.

Great northern Beans are a nutrient dense food that, I feel, belongs in any Survival Garden plan. When combined with rice, a person could easily survive on eating just these two foods (along with a supply of water of course). That’s because, between the two of them, they supply the nine essential amino acids that the body cannot make it self out of the twenty one it needs to be able to survive.