[Eblana]

Just doing my sowing plan here at the moment and I am a little confused.  I was told to plant beans 3 seeds in a 7 cm pot to start the seeds off (if I plant direct something eats them on me).  The planting distance on the packet says plants should be 15 cms apart - does that mean that I separate the plants in the pot and plant each of them 15 cms apart or do I plant each pot 15 cms apart?

[mumofstig]

I plant three in the hope of getting 2  and then plant 1 pot's worth to a cane if they're climbing beans or plant  about 10ins apart if they're dwarf beans

[oldgrunge]

I sow beans and peas one to a loo roll centre, they can then go straight into the soil with minimum disturbance.

[snowdrops]

What sort of beans?

[Eblana]

What sort of beans?

Snowdrops I am planning for both Climbing French and Dwarf French Beans.

[Hampshire Hog]

Hi snowdrops I grow broad beans, borlotti beans and a few runners. Start them all off in pots or trays for smaller seeds - borlotti. I like the borlotti as they can be eaten in various ways early as a whole pod or if later beans podded or even later dried and stored for winter use. When the soil warms up I may sow direct but you get greater losses from mice etc. I find

Cheers HH

[Goosegirl]

Snowdrops I am planning for both Climbing French and Dwarf French Beans.
[/quote]
I grow these and plant one seed per small 3 inch pot and lightly water in. When they come up and the roots are coming out of the bottom of the pot, I transplant them into a bigger pot to allow them to put on more growth before planting out at the required distance.

[DD.]

That's a lot of faffing! 

I get about 40 in a cat litter tray and just pop them out when they've got a decent size first leaf.

[sunshineband]

That's a lot of faffing! 

I get about 40 in a cat litter tray and just pop them out when they've got a decent size first leaf.

And for goodness sake don't leave climbing beans in the tray too long anyone, or you will have a heck of  a lot of unravelling to do 

[DD.]

That's why I said "first leaf"!  (First true leaf that is).

[sunshineband]

That's why I said "first leaf"!  (First true leaf that is).

I spoke from hard won experience there 

First leaf is good, very good 

[Eblana]

That's a lot of faffing! 

I get about 40 in a cat litter tray and just pop them out when they've got a decent size first leaf.

I might give that a try, the cat litter tray would take up less space than all the pots. 

[sunshineband]

That's a lot of faffing! 

I get about 40 in a cat litter tray and just pop them out when they've got a decent size first leaf.

I might give that a try, the cat litter tray would take up less space than all the pots.

Very true 

[cadalot]

I'm a loo roll kind of guy and they squeeze quite nicely into a module and I provided bamboo BBQ skewers for them to grow up and then they get planted as they reach the top of the skewer.

[Kristen]

I sow Broad Beans one-per 3" / 9cm pot.  Any pots that don't germinate get recycled for some later crop.

Ditto for Dwarf French.  They can't go out until after last frost, so having them in individual pots means I can hold them back a bit.  I plant out at the recommended spacing (and for Broad Beans). I only use Dwarf French as a stop-gap until the Climbers start producing - too back breaking picking Dwarf French!!

I sow 2 Runners / Climbing French seeds per pot (I suppose 3 would be fine, then thin to 2, but seems a waste to me as they germinate close to 100%).  I plant out one-pot per cane, with canes at the recommended spacing.  They seem to be fine with two plants competing for a single cane. I used to do one-per-pot and one-pot-per-cane, but someone recommended 2-per-pot and I've been doing that for several years.  Fewer pots to have to find greenhouse space for!

When I plant out Climbing French I also sow a seed with each pot. That comes on a month later and prolongs the season. My Runners keep going until the end of the season anyway, so I don't bother to sow a seed as I plant them - but you could My family prefer French to Runners so we don't grow many runners, and I would not worry too much if they didn't perform well. Clearly for other folk it's the other way round