Sprouting & Planting Grocery Store Dry Bulk Soup Beans
I wondered if you could plant dry soup beans purchased from the grocery store and save tons of money on seed beans. So I bought a bunch of beans and sprouted them indoors first to speed up the germination and then planted them into the garden. Here are my results.
I got a bunch of one pound bags of Goya brand beans at the grocery store for a dollar per bag. This is very cheap for beans in the first place. But if I could plant them and grow more from them, then it would be super cheap in comparison to seed beans.
I first took a metal cookie tray and the laid a couple paper towlels on the tray. I wet the paper towels and then opened up each bag of beans. I put about 20 of each type of bean on the tray neatly in rows. I had some kidney beans, red beans, lima beans, chickpeas and barley.
I then layered two more paper towels over the top of the beans and soaked them as well. I left the tray with the beans in a cool, dark place to see if they would germinate.
After three days the kidney beans and red beans had almost all sprouted. The chickpeas were starting to sprout. The lima beans and barley just turned moldy.
On the fourth day I checked the beans again and they were ready for planting. Again the lima beans and barley were a failure. They just turned moldy and were discarded.
I put the sprouted beans in the garden and left them for just over two weeks to see if they would grow well. The kidney beans and red beans grew within a few days. Sadly a worm ate off most of the new leaves from the freshly sprouted plants, killing them. The chickpeas took a while but they are also growing nicely in our garden.
The experiment was a success. You can plant and grow bulk dry soup beans in your garden for a very low cost alternative to seed beans. At a dollar per pound for soup beans compared to three dollars for a handful of seed beans, this is a huge savings.
Some beans have been irradiated to prevent germination and to kill off any harmful pathogens that may be on the seeds before packaging. This is for the safety of the company selling the food. But I do not like irradiated food so another benefit of this experiment is that it shows me which foods are safer to eat.
You can watch the full YouTube video of the experiment here: Video: Sprouting & Planting Grocery Store Dry Bulk Soup Beans
While you are over there please subscribe and watch my daily videos as my wife and I strive to become self sufficient on a budget.
About the Author
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Troy Reid |
