Planting beans to watch how plants grow

I remember growing kidney beans for a school project, in a transparent jar to watch how it develops root system and first leafs.
Recently I talked to a friend who wanted to grow some plants on a balcony, to show her kid how things grow. She asked me what plants would be good for this. I suggested sweet pea, as it's easy to grow and tasty. Recently many restaurants use pea shoots to decorate their dishes.

What beans would you choose for this kind of project, and how would you plant them so that it's fun to watch how they grow? I have some transparent plastic cups, maybe I'll use them for that.

Runner or French beans are good and big so easy to see what is going on.  If you want to grow them on a balcony maybe choose dwarf varieties.  There is a way of starting them in transparent plastic cups so that you put a roll of damp paper towel in there to hold them up against the side of the cup.  Then it is easy to watch the different parts develop: roots, seed leaves, true leaves etc.  Once the seed is well sprouted transfer it to a proper pot with compost.  Another way to see how seeds germinate is any sprouting salad such as mung beans in a jar or cress on paper towels.  The bonus is that they are ready to eat very quickly which is good to maintain kids' interest.  

If I was going to do the runner beans in a cup thing I might also do broad beans as they germinate differently.  They sprout from a different place on the seed, and they leave their seed leaves (cotyledons) behind under the ground and only the true leaves come up, unlike the runner types which use their cotyledons for extra photosynthesis and bring them up above ground.

And once you get into botany I would also sprout some wheat so you can show how some plants only have one cotyledon.  This year I am growing some hostas from seed and it wasn't until they germinated that I realised they are monocotyledons.  They are related to lilies and asparagus.

Growing a plant from a bean is great for children! I still remember it, even though it was almost 60 years ago ...

I thought sweet peas were a poisonous flower.  Is there an edible variety or did you possibly nean garden peas?

Flora Eerschay wrote: I suggested sweet pea, as it's easy to grow and tasty. Recently many restaurants use pea shoots to decorate their dishes.

You mean sugar peas, not sweet peas. Sweet peas are a poisonous ornamental flower and they look like edible peas so you don't want to mix them up. The edible ones go by names like Sugar Snap.

Jenny Wright wrote:

Flora Eerschay wrote: I suggested sweet pea, as it's easy to grow and tasty. Recently many restaurants use pea shoots to decorate their dishes.

You mean sugar peas, not sweet peas. Sweet peas are a poisonous ornamental flower and they look like edible peas so you don't want to mix them up. The edible ones go by names like Sugar Snap.

Yes, that was a bad translation, sorry!

Flora Eerschay wrote:

Jenny Wright wrote:

Flora Eerschay wrote: I suggested sweet pea, as it's easy to grow and tasty. Recently many restaurants use pea shoots to decorate their dishes.

You mean sugar peas, not sweet peas. Sweet peas are a poisonous ornamental flower and they look like edible peas so you don't want to mix them up. The edible ones go by names like Sugar Snap.

Yes, that was a bad translation, sorry!

😊 I have always thought "sweet peas"  is such a confusing name. It really should be called something different!

Jenny Wright wrote:

Flora Eerschay wrote:

Jenny Wright wrote:

Flora Eerschay wrote: I suggested sweet pea, as it's easy to grow and tasty. Recently many restaurants use pea shoots to decorate their dishes.

You mean sugar peas, not sweet peas. Sweet peas are a poisonous ornamental flower and they look like edible peas so you don't want to mix them up. The edible ones go by names like Sugar Snap.

Yes, that was a bad translation, sorry!

😊 I have always thought "sweet peas"  is such a confusing name. It really should be called something different!

Here we don't have that confusion. We just call that ornamental flower 'lathyrus' (it seems to have a Dutch name too, but I never heard anyone use that)