Provider Green Beans (Harvest XL / Ended )

[areyoukittenme]

I had been germinating some green beans from Thresh Seeds in a wet paper towel, and on Tuesday (the 17th) I planted them in my Harvest XL. Providers are bush beans that are supposed to reach 15-18" tall, which means I'm cutting it close in the Harvest XL and I'll probably have to do some pruning to keep 'em from touching the lights. There's a cucumber in my one Bounty, though, and a tomato in the other, so this is the tallest garden I have available at the moment. Hopefully it works out!

Here they are this morning:

I put stickers on the pods right after this was taken. They weren't on before because the little seedlings had that big bean hat on so they didn't seem like they could make it through the small sticker hole. They seem good now, though!

[lynnee]

Another fascinating project!

[Shawn]

I bet you may be able to contain it.

[areyoukittenme]

10 days in and the beans are having a party!

I have to admit I wasn't expecting leaves that big from these 😲  I'm glad they're happy!

We'll see how things develop, but I wonder if I'll have to cut down to just one plant as they get bigger?

[Sher]

I don't know, but it's going to be fun to watch! 

[lynnee]

Your beans look like they're on steroids, areyoukittenme!

I think you can grow two of those plants in the Harvest, but it might be easier if they had been started one on each side. That would have left more space for the leaves.

With Fairy Tale eggplants, which also have large leaves, you get about the same total harvest from either a solo plant or from two plants.

It'll be interesting to see what you do with these!

[Sher]

lynnee, that's good to know about the Fairy Tales because one is a lot bigger and healthier than the other one. So after the first harvest, I think I'll remove the smaller one.

Somebody overfertilized mine and I had to dump half the reservoir and refill it with plain water. 

[areyoukittenme]

It's been an eventful week in Beansville!

The bigger of the two plants had grown so much faster it was shading out the littler one, so the littler one was removed entirely. I also turned this plant to the side to give it more room to roam. It had also grown too close to the lights and fried a leaf, so that got raised up a click. And finally, that great big leaf it grew seems to have been a trick, because none of the leaves it's grown after that have been anywhere near that size (or even the same shape, really). Sneaky bean!

[lynnee]

Monster bean, maybe? I hope you get bean production that matches the leaf production!

[Shawn]

Standing strong

[areyoukittenme]

I noticed that new leaves seem to come out pale yellow and then darken to this pretty green color over time, and today I saw there are some leaves in the middle of doing that! So I wanted to share

[lynnee]

Fascinating! It's really helpful to know that the leaves go to green without supplements!

[Sher]

Yes! I would have prematurely jumped into adding extra nitrogen if I had seen those yellow leaves.

It's wonderful to know that they can turn green without any help!

[areyoukittenme]

I could be wrong! Maybe there's some deficiency, but if there is then it doesn't seem to be behaving as I'd expect it to. Normally it'd be the lowest leaves that would turn yellow and die from lack of nitrogen, right?

Although ... you know what does cause yellowing at the top? Too much light. And I have noticed what looked like a bit of sunscald on a few leaves as it's been growing. I have a hard time imagining that a plant that normally likes full sun would find the 25w Aerogarden lights too much, but maybe? I could try moving the lights up a bit...

[Sher]

It doesn't look like sunscald to me, areyoukittenme, since the yellow leaves later green up.

But I have had leaves burn from lights in a 20 watt Harvest.

[areyoukittenme]

Well, it seems like something was wrong after all because the poor little bean plant started declining after that post and I wasn't able to save it. I don't know exactly what the problem was - there were no pests I could find and I wasn't able to find any pictures that looked like what was going on precisely. My best guess is that maybe it had some kind of virus - I know there's a couple that can be seedborne in beans. Either that or it was just not suited to my growing conditions.

[Sher]

Sorry it didn't make it, areyoukittenme.

[Shawn]

I am sorry.  But one thing positive is that you can start a new project in that machine.  Any ideas what you will try?  Beans again?  Something different?

[areyoukittenme]

Jun 13, 2022 12:03:30 GMT -5 Shawn said:

I am sorry.  But one thing positive is that you can start a new project in that machine.  Any ideas what you will try?  Beans again?  Something different?

I don't want to do beans again in that unit just in case there was a virus (though of course I'll clean and sanitize it). I have some celery seeds I was thinking about trying, but those might get too tall. If nothing else I can grow some spicy greens!

[Sher]

areyoukittenme , I just ran across this. Calmag would probably have saved your plant.

Or even epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) dissolved in water and added to the reservoir. I am too lazy to do the math, so I would have used Calmag.