Of Beans and Peas

Now that my little plants are growing well I've been thinking about what do with them so I hopped on the net to look for some guidance.

My first lesson was that just because the seeds like kind of similar it doesn't mean that the plants grow in the same conditions!  I'd kind of assumed that because the seeds are kind of similar and peas are quite like beans that they must grow in the same way and thus I planted them all at the same time.  I should have checked what the bean packet meant when it said to plant 'mid spring'... seems dumb now but that obviously meant April/May not Feb/March!

So the peas should be fine as they like cooler weather, as should the broad beans but I appear to have planted the runner beans about 2 months earlier than I should have!  I'm not giving up on them yet but they may become unmanageably large before it's safe to let them out into the garden... we shall see.  I shall probably plant some more at the proper time; a nice backup in case these fail or an interesting comparison if they don't.

I planted all my peas/beans into the same little modular trays that I used for the tomato seed; in hindsight this may not have been the best plan... I can't believe how sturdy the little peas/beans are; such lovely thick stems... such active root systems.  I've potted them all on into 8cm peat pots today which will hopefully keep them going until the garden is ready for them but I had to do a fair bit more coaxing of roots out of the drainage holes than I expected.

From what I've seen the mange-tout's have fairly delicate stems and put down thready, wandering roots (which built their own network under the modules), they came out nice and easy but left all their soil behind.

Pea Seedling

The broad beans have very thick white roots which seemed to head straight down in a nice neat fan pattern; oddly there didn't seem to be any particular correlation between root length and plant size.

Broad Bean Seedling

The runner beans have crazy strong roots and took all their soil with them when they came, they also tended to put their main root through the drainage hole; longer roots definitely went with bigger plants.

Runner Bean Seedling

Amazingly every single seed I planted germinated; I originally planted loads of seeds to allow for my tendency to kill small things with alarming skill.  I guess it'll be a day or so until I see if I've inflicted any lasting harm on my plants by transferring them into the new pots, hopefully they'll make it but I wouldn't be surprised if a few are a little shocked from the transition.

Pictures from http://www.sciencephoto.com/ as my camera battery was dead!