The stores are about out of seed now and it has finally stopped raining. The slugs enjoyed dining on my green bean shoots and I only have 1 left. As I was washing the Great Northern beans for a big ol pot of porkie beans for tomorrow night supper, it occured to me that they looked remarkably like green bean seeds. I asked DH to plant a handful. We have gotten peanuts from raw unshelled peanuts from the grocery store, and pineapple from the tops cut off and thrown out by the deli's when they make fresh pre packaged pineapple-anyone have any luck planting dried grocery store beans??

-- Mitzi Giles (Egiles2@prodigy.net), November 11, 2001

Answers

When I was a kid in the city I planted everything that I could in the backyard. I tried the beans from pintos and navy and they came up just fine. Once I planted all of the seeds out of an acorn squash and it took over the whole side yard of the house! We had bushels! heeheehee! Some store bought packaged beans are just a bit beaneier (is that a word?:~)

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), November 11, 2001.

A good friend of mine plants dried Black-Eye Peas he buys from the Grocery Store, he allways has good luck with them and they taste great.

-- Mark in N.C. Fla. (deadgoatman@webtv.net), November 11, 2001.

To go along with this: how about peas= all they sell is split peas and I was wondering if 1/2 a pea does as good (or anything at all). I have had sucess with some of the other beans. Also, I had bought my wife a bag of black oiled sunflower seeds- almost every leftover seed sprouted and produced some nice sunflowers. And we had a 2 lb bag of potatoes that produced at least 20 lbs- would have been more, but these darn little orange bugs ate all the greens even after repeated and thorough squishings.

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), November 11, 2001.

The half peas would probably not do anything because the little cotyledon is missing. YIKES! :~)!! That sounds funny doesn't it. Well, whatever you call the little baby plant that is in the seed would be missing in split peas. You could plant purple hulls, or blackeyed, black beans, or limas, or lots of others though. Lots of seeds from inside vegetables from the store will grow too. I have had good luck with watermelons, cantelopes, squash of all sorts, and even some fruits. I planted some peach pits around our driveway in our old house and everyone laughed at me. They have tons of huge peaches every year! Took them about 5 or so years to get going good! The lady that rented it from us said that she had so many peaches that she sold them! I think that they were Elbertas. Not all peaches would work like that because of the Grafting or hybridization or whatever. Experimenting is a blast!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), November 13, 2001.

Yes, I have planted Great Northern and other beans from the bags at the store when I ran out of my "regular" seeds. With the hybrids and GM going on now, I would be careful, but it should work.

-- notnow (notnow05@yahoo.com), November 13, 2001.

you are right about pk beans peas, and all the rest in the gocery store i do iot all the time. thanks for your web site i am looking for a cotton seed source. can you help me ??

amazzie@discover.net thanks

-- diana sales (amazzie@discover.net), April 27, 2002.