OK. Maybe I've got it all wrong. When the pods (which are red--although this may vary-- I suppose) turn brown on the plant, they are full of small black seeds. Once the pod dries up and opens up one can collect the small seeds inside. What I don't have clear yet is...if these are not the seeds, then, which are the seeds? I have grown Castor beans for a couple of years and all I have seen is the red pods full of small black seeds. Wish I knew how to post a picture here to be more explicit. Now I am really confused--maybe that is why I can't germinate them--maybe they are not the seeds after all. Thanks so much for discussing this.

Weeper, my in-laws farm out your way. :) We're east of S'toon ourselves. I My favs right now are poles. We like Fortex best for flavour, but we find that Emerite freezes nicer for winter. Last year we tried Purple Peacock and despite all the storms, high winds and hail of last summer, they produced loads of beans. We liked them fresh, but they haven't held up in the freezer like Emerite and Fortex. We won't be growing them again. We've tried Blue Lake Pole as well and I have to say they were the worst beans I'd ever grown. I love the runner beans, but the family doesn't. I prefer Painted Lady over Scarlet Runner. Neither my husband or I had ever seen a hummingbird in person until I started planting the runners. Now we have them all over and have even spotted little youngsters. :) But back to the beans... ThirstyDirt77, I've grown Gold Rush before, but prefer Gold Mine. They produce more in my soil. We grow only a few yellows for the texture... they're sooo tender. Royal Burgundy is great; they hold longer on the plant I find, which is nice when a person is busy. They freeze well, too. Early's sells an Improved Tendergreen that freezes really well for us. They're kind of boring flavour-wise, though, compared to the poles. As far as bush beans, I've grown: Provider, Matador, Tema, Labrador... I'm sure there's been a couple more, but I can't think of them at the moment. I haven't fallen in love with any of them. I'm still looking for the best green bush bean for our garden. Last year was my first time growing a dry bush bean - Orca. I grew only to expand my seed quantity last year, so we haven't tasted them yet. I'll be able to plant a lot more this year so we can try them out. I direct sow the bush beans, but start all my pole beans inside in soil blocks. As soon as they sprout, they go outside and they get transplanted into the garden about 10 days after they were seeded. I found that doing this let me start picking Emerite and Fortex the same week the bush beans started producing and they continued right until frost, unlike the bushes. I started Orca inside in the soil blocks as well because I was worried there wouldn't be enough time for them to dry down. I'll probably do that again as it's not a big deal with the soil blocks.

Nobody in this area of the country will forget that "once-in-a-hundred-years" freeze we had last Easter! I plant by how the weather feels... with one eye on the calendar, but I believe more how soil and air feels and stuff like how far the oaks have leaved out. "Plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear", etc. Frost hardy salad greens were in regular harvest stage and they were all fine. However, I had Black Aztec sweet corn 4 inches tall, assorted summer squash at first true leaves, Red Pontiac potatoes coming up well, all varieties strawberries blooming, figs had leaved out already, Super Sugar Snap peas a foot high... then we're being told it will be 25 degrees tonite!! Ron and I were able to cover most of the strawberries with heavy plastic sheeting (for me to remove early next morning when temp rose above freezing), and I dropped 3 gallon plastic nursery pots over the squash and potatoes (some 8 inches high). Next morning I took mental notes, and I immediately ordered more corn seed. I watched and waited on somewhat damaged squash; they stood still; I replanted beside them, and the new seedlings outgrew those that had "survived" the frost. Biggest potatoes had to resprout and were late and I eventually pulled them to make way for next crop. Those just emerging were fine with the makeshift protection and produced a crop. Strawberries at outside of beds were frozen, but a lot in center were OK... I figgered I lost 35% of the crop. Figs leafed out again and fruited a month late; Peas froze to ground, but most plants sent up base shoots, and I got a crop after all. My soybeans did not come up, and I found them as rotted mush, frozen with their bent necks less than 1/2 inch from emerging! The rest of the seed was planned to follow the corn first of July, but with start-over making corn late, I never got to plant soybeans last year. When I went to plant replacement corn, I kept find roots obviously still alive. I tossed out the first few, but then I got curious and left them in the ground. A fair percentage (35 - 40%??) sent up new shoots and cropped, altho later than the replants beside them. Mostly a nuisance to a gardener, but shows that variety would survive as a species even with a late frost some years. Worse news on trees. No acorns; no persimmons; no tree fruits of any kind around here (except my figs!). Trees did recover but a major amount of wildlife winter food was lost forever. Black walnuts sleep late in the spring, and they were fine. My antique roses (mostly Rugosas, Gallicas, Albas, Noisettes, Hybrid Musk)simply regrouped, leafed out again. The one-time bloomers (Albas and Gallicas) lost most of their flowering capacity for the year; the other groups are remontant; they just regrouped and flowered as usual, but a month later. Most hardy perenniel flowers and bulbs were not significantly affected. Your woodchuck recipe - still laughing! Back in the last century, I was joking about writing a cookbook for sale at local tourist traps: HOW TO COOK YOUR GARDEN PESTS. Most garden raiders can be found in game cookbooks, even a few with more than 4 legs. I did the research, but I ain't crazy about dressing out warm-blooded animals. Dressing woodchucks: The smell, the general ugliness, and that very tough skin that almost repelled my knife. I pretty soon figgered out something else I wanted to do worse that morning... My first almost-dinner woodchuck very shortly turned into deer repellant tossed under the tree where the herd gathers to lay up during the day and plot their night raids on my ripening corn. Assassinated feral cats (my neighbor feeds a population of them!)are also used for deer repellent. Anybody caught playing "lion at the waterhole" with birds at my birdbath will be offered a trail of canned mackeral leading into the Hav-a-Hart and will quietly disappear forever. Possums I drive 10 miles and turn loose; rabbits I just turn out locally. But woodchucks just eat too much too fast, plus they dig under my cages and barriers. One way trip for them, too. Fortunately woodchucks have 3 Achillies heels: too stupid to change their paths once discovered; day feeders so I can find them eating and see where they run so I know where to set the trap; one litter a year, so I can often get Mama and all the kits in 36 hours or so, and they're history until another one moves in. I check DAILY for signs of feeding everywhere I have a crop planted.... sometimes I'm still too late! I would expect them to taste a lot like wild bunnies and squirrels? Confirm, please. My brother in Wyoming supplies us with top-quality venison every year as a Christmas gift, and often include a few other sundry species. But as long as Arkansas whole fryers keep going on sale for 49 cents a pound, the pest cook book will probably stay on the back burner. Gee, not a word about fava beans in this one... note they are still fine today... in 54 degree sun and wind, with rain and cold on the way again... Jan

My above posting was in case if you wait enogh till Mung plants grow thru pod bearing time. If you are interested only about sprouts there are some observations to note down. Mung beans sprouted in dark will be leggy.This may be compared with sprouts germinated under normal conditons. You have not mentoned the method in which you plan to sprout the seeds.Just for FYI I will mention about beans my grand son sprouted for his science project. He sprouted beans in two differnt soils to study the germination.One batch was germinated in river sand and another one in regular potting soil and he got good results to compare with.