Crazy (?) Bean Scheme

So I have a bag of bulk beans from the store. Two nights ago I put a few into a moist towel and they seem to be sprouting. Thus I am thinking of planting a bunch. Now these beans aren't inoculated so I was thinking about putting them into a bowl of water with some Austrian Winter Pea cover crop which IS inoculated. Sound like a plan? I don't want to waste a potential dinner without a least a snowballs chance of getting future dinners out of it.

Is the variety you have bought likely to be suited to your climate? You may not need to worry about innoculating either. Our bean seeds have never been innoculated and have always done fine.

A few weeks ago I set some beans to soak before cooking. We only ended up using half of them and the rest sprouted. I've also tried deliberately presprouting bean seeds - they germinated really well, but then didn't do much when planted. I think I put them out too early as we have still had a couple of frosts.

I have no idea what sort of bean they are (small and black) and know of only one way to find out if they'll grow or not. It's starting to get really warm here. Hitting the mid 70s in the sun for sure, and that's not taking into account the southward sloping suntrap hugel nature of some of the beds I'm interested in planting. If we get any more frosts before fall I'll eat my boots. And they're synthetic. I guess I'll just give it a shot. Worst case scenario results in more organic matter in the soil right? I am going to soak them with the peas for an hour or two. I want nitrogen!

I've done this for a few years now. I buy beans from the grocery store. Yellow Eye, Soldier and Black beans have all done well for me here. The longish thin black beans will give you a yellow "green bean" for fresh cooking or you can wait til they are dried out and retrieve the dried black beans. Soldier beans are for dry shelling as are the Yellow Eye. Germination of store bought beans tends to be lower (80% or so) so you may wish to plant them a little more densely or plant an extra row. Last year I had so much extra that fed whole plants to the animals. Pigs like to eat the plant and leaves but they didn't actually eat the pods of beans. The chickens do eat the beans and pods but not the leaves.

You can look up different varieties to see if they are bush or vine beans. That will make planting easier. I made the mistake of mixing runner beans into a garden bed without a trellis. What a tangle.

I know that there are different types of innoculants so you may want to look in a seed catalog to see if you have the right one for the beans in question.

Go for it and good luck.