Starting Right with Green Beans
Please read through this entire article before doing any of the steps that are recommended below, as there are many photographs, special tips and suggestions to help ensure success with your new Green Bean Seed Kit.
Introduction: How Green Beans Grow
Green Beans generally start to germinate within a few days after planting. Each Seed Pod is planted with two seeds to make sure that at least one of them sprouts and grows.
Here are some photographs showing the sprouting process (Seed Pod labels have been removed for clarity):
The little shoot that first pops out of a swelling green bean seed is a structure that will become both the root (at the tip end), and the stem, which is attached to the “seed leaves” inside the white seed coat at the other end:
As the seedling grows, the root and stem begin to elongate and specialize. In the photo on the left below the pencil is pointing to the root, and in the right photo the pencil is pointing to the seed leaves (or cotyledons, in botanical terms), which will be pushed upward toward the light as the stem elongates. (The green loop is the stem).
 
After the root has anchored itself down in the Grow Sponge and the stem begins to elongate, the seed leaves will start to grow upward toward the light. The first true leaves will emerge from between these two seed leaves. You can see from the photo below that they are a different shape than the seed leaves.
Here is what the plant will look like a few days later after the true leaves have unfolded:
It’s best to let the plant emerge by itself from the seed coat. If you try to “help” it by pulling the seed coat off it is very easy to damage the plant.
Some Things You May Need to Do
to Help Your Beans Get Off to a Good Start
Removing the Second Seedling or Seed
It is very important that only one plant per seed pod be allowed to grow. It may seem harsh to pluck out a tiny plant and discard it, but it is necessary to assure the health and strength of the other plant. The remaining green bean sprout will grow much bigger and produce many more beans if it is by itself than if it is competing for light and nutrients with another plant. Use your fingers or if you can’t reach in, a pair of tweezers, for any of the procedures described below.
To remove the second, smaller green bean sprout, grasp the seed or stem and gently pull it out, root and all. It is important to do this while the plants are still little, because otherwise pulling up the root of one plant may damage the root of the other. Remove this second seed (or seedling) as soon as one good, healthy green been plant has sprouted up and is pushing toward the light.
Even if only one of the seeds in a pod germinates, it is still important to remove the other seed because otherwise it will decay within the pod and cause mold to form.
The next photo shows removing a decaying seed:
Righting an Upside-Down Seedling
Often a green bean seed will sprout upside-down, that is, with its root growing up. If this happens, you will need to turn it over so that its root will grow down into the Seed Pod, but again, be sure to read through the entire section below before removing or turning your young bean sprout.
If you notice that the root of your emerging green bean is pointing upward (as shown in the first photo below), you will need to turn the seed end-for-end so that the root tip is pointing downward.
You must do this very carefully and gently as it is very easy to break off the root and kill the seedling. Also, wait until the root is at least as long as the seed itself before turning the seed over, and make sure that the root itself is in contact with the moist Grow Sponge:
The photo above shows the correct orientation, but the seed may need to be lower down in the Grow Sponge in order to receive enough water after being flipped. Because the upward-growing root did not properly anchor itself in the Grow Sponge, when you flip it there may not be enough room for both seeds in the little dip in the top of the Grow Sponge. To ensure success, you can do the following procedure to make more space:
Lift the entire Grow Pod out of the Grow Surface, and gently remove both seeds and lay them in a dish of water or even in a little dripped pool of water on the Grow Surface. They will need to stay wet while you are working on the Grow Sponge.
Push the Grow Sponge up from bottom until you can grasp it from the top and remove it:
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Now take a pair of scissors and make a vertical slit about a quarter of an inch deep across the top of the Grow Sponge. :
Hold the Grow Sponge open at the cut, and VERY CAREFULLY place both seeds back into the Grow Sponge, making sure the root or roots are pointing downward and are in good contact with the Grow Sponge so they will receive moisture. Do not try to force the root down into the pod or you may break the root and kill the seedling. As long as the root is pointing in the right direction and touching the moist Grow Sponge, it will grow itself down into the pod.
It is best to allow both seeds to grow until one has successfully rooted itself in the Grow Sponge and is growing up toward the light, before removing the smaller one.
Special tip:
If one of your Seed Pods has two seeds that didn’t sprout, but another Seed Pod has two healthy sprouts, try transplanting one of the healthy sprouts into the pod that has none.
Use the same technique as shown above, where you cut a slit in the top of the Grow Sponge to hold the new sprout. To ensure success, make sure that 1) you completely remove any dead seed material or mold in the pod that did not sprout, and 2) the “extra” healthy seedling is still relatively young and yet has enough root (after being “uprooted”) to survive.
Preparing the Green Bean Support Wires
The next thing that it is important to do is prepare the support wires that will hold your plants up when they start to get heavy with beans. It is best to set them up early, before your Green Bean plants are more than a couple of inches tall.
Begin by straightening the wires. The photo below shows the sequence of steps, in order from left to right, of how to bend a wire. Begin by straightening the wire as shown on the far left, and then bending one end into a loop that is the size of the base of a seed pod, as shown second-from-leff. Continue from left to right, omparing each step below with the one next to it to understand each successive bend you must make.
After the support is bent to match the one on the far right, lift out a Seed Pod and insert it through the loop, then reinsert them together back into the Grow Deck.
Alternatively, you can just use a new, disposable bamboo chopstick (the kind you get with Chinese take-out food) and a twisty-tie . This second method works great! Push the chopstick down alongside the Grow Sponge, between the Grow Sponge and the side of the Grow Basket. You will need to cut away about a quarter-inch of the label to make space for the chopsitick. If you are using the long pods of an AeroGarden 3 or 6, just push the chopstick down until it touches the bottom of the basket. If you are using the short pods of an AeroGarden 7-Pod model (Classic or Pro), you must make sure the tip of the chopstick sticks a bit through the hole in the bottom of the basket. This will provide leverage that will keep it from flopping over when the bean plants get heavy. (You could also use a bamboo "brochette" or shishkebab skewer instead of a chopstick).
As your green beans grow taller, you will need to make sure the stem is supported, either in the loop at the top of the Support Wire, or by a twisty-tie around the chopstick. You may need to adjust the supports as the plants grow large and start to bear a crop of heavy beans.
As the flowers pollinate themselves, green beans will develop out of the base of the flowers. The petals will get pushed out by the developing green bean, and will eventually fall off the bean onto the Grow Surface. This is perfectly normal - remember, for every dropped flower on the Grow Surface, a green bean is developing on the plant! Clean up the dropped petals to keep them from falling into the Bowl and decaying. The next photo shows unpollinated flowers at the top, with pollinated flowers developing beans below it.
A Final Note About Green Bean Care and Harvesting
Green beans are one of our fastest-growing and earliest-yielding Seed Kits. They are quite easy to care for once they are up and properly supported. Green Beans pollinate themselves, and will go through several cycles of flowering and producing beans.
The best thing you can do to assure the longest harvest is to pick every green bean as soon as it is 3 or 4 inches long. Do not let them hang on the plant, or the plant will put its energy into ripening the seeds inside the pods, which will shorten its lifespan and lower its yield.
It is also a good idea to remove any really large leaves that are growing lower down on the plant, as they don’t receive as much light and will end up developing brown spots, yellowing, or drying up as they age.
 
If you need further assistance, or if you have any other questions about your AeroGarden or Seed Kits, there are many more articles available on this web site. Also feel free to call us at AeroGrow Customer Service at 1-800-476-9669, and one of our agents will be happy to assist you.
Happy AeroGardening!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 November 2008 21:24 )
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