"I plan to pre-sprout them so that I only plant the ones that are definitely viable..." Too much labor. A bag of seed is $1.50 - just soak the beans overnight and plant. Plenty will come up. Trust me. "I have no idea exactly what variety these are, how long it will take them to mature and put out fruit, etc. " It makes little difference; they are all about the same. "I do know that they are most likely bush beans, but I do plan on giving them some support if necessary. " It won't be. Let em do their thing. My questions are: "1. If I am planting one 4-ft row, would 4 plants be too many for that space? I may not get many... DH seem to believe that the time and effort to harvest them may far outweigh the relatively cheap cost at which they can be purchased and low output of bean plants." Plant them 4" apart all around - 9-12 per SQUARE FOOT. DH is RIGHT, TOO. I grow them as cover and forage for chickens. And I eat some. But it takes a LOT of plants to make a season. Machine methods make them cheap. But you don't need to adopt them. Grow in sq . foot groups. "2. Since there is a chance that they may be slightly more vine-y than bush-y, is there also a chance that I might be able to clone them?" Don't bother - too much labor again for cheap seed. Just plant more beans. And it won't work anyway; theu don't grow from cuttings. "3. If I pick off pods at some point, will this at all encourage them to grow more? Yes, They keep producing for 2-3 pickings, when picked green. "Say for example, if I pick them off to dry them myself, as opposed to waiting for them to dry on the vine? Can you even do that?" Three pickings: 1. When young pods are about 3-4" long; eat like snap beans. 2. When matured, but still soft and green, as "edamame" or Southern-type "field peas," 3. When completely dried as cooked beans and seed. "4. I understand that they might not set pod once temps reach 80 and above. Being in Chicago, that means potentially by mid-June, but more likely July and August. If they have not set pods by then, will they never set pods, or will they simply set pods later in the season after it cools off again?" Pinto's, Navy's, Limas - they will struggle setting in the heat. Black beans, field peas/cowpeas, lentils, pigeon peas - they love the heat. "5. If they do set pods before the temperature gets too high, and I harvest them, will they again set pods once the weather cools again?" Possibly. They don't last long, and too early will subject them to bean beetles. Once they give their all, I suggest you chop em em up and compost em. Better to grow two crops than try to hold one. "6. I have read in many places that you are actually supposed to wait for the plant to DIE before harvesting the beans. How accurate/efficient is this?" For dried beans, sure. But once the pods are obviously dried, pull the plants up and re-use the space. "7. Lastly, again being in Chicago, we tend to have a very wet fall season. I understand this can complicate the drying process, so what would the recommendation be as far as harvesting the beans before they might be completely dry on the vine, but before the weather gets too wet?" Plant in late May and add plantings every two weeks until mid-July. Your last bunch will come off end of September/early October. Once the beans are mature, you can pull the plants, broom them and hang until completely dry if you wish. By then you will have had your fill of beans, I assure you.

Is there a website or email group that continues with this thread: I've read this thread both here and in the frugal forum, and since I noticed the person in the frugal forum really wanted the thread to stop, and both have been inactive for a few years... I imagine folks don't want to restart here, but I'm interested in a handful of plants, not mentioned here, that I imagine could be grown from pieces of grocery store vegetables, like: a. broccoli from a bit of stalk? b. belgian endives from their stalks( since lettuce and cabbage work from their stalk)? c. kale, collard, mustard greens that don't end in just a leaf tip, but are still connected, thus have about a 1/2 inch to an inch of stalk --would that grow? d. how about brussel sprouts bought on their stalk, would the stalk grow brussels if planted? e. will a turnip or rutabega root grow if you plant the greens with 1/2 inch of stalk, or even if you just plant that course stalk with no greens? Again, I'm just listing my curiousities here, but I don't expect the thread to be reopened and my questions answered, --I'd just like to be referred to a website or email list that specificly focuses on this if you found out about one. Thanks, ~Diana

Susan, Glad you finally got a pea to taste. I use innoculants sporadically but not often. I'll use one if I am planting peas or beans in an area where no legumes have been grown in recent years. Otherwise, the rhizobia tends to be there in the soil already. Whether to freeze or refrigerate the seed is your choice. I don't do it because of space considerations. If you do choose to keep it in a freezer or refrigerator, be sure it is in an air-tight container. I have found that all home-grown peas are infinitely better than any you buy at the store---there is no comparison between the two. That's why I grow so many veggies---because fresh, locally-grown veggies taste like veggies. The produce purchased at the grocery store is grown long distances away and shipped so it is several days old by the time you get it and the quality (and nutrient content) decreases every day. Sometimes you can find snap peas at Farmer's Markets that really are locally grown and fresh, but even they tend not to be quite as fresh and tasty as home-grown. They show general heat stress....browning, yellowing or fading of the leaves' normally lovely color. They stop blooming or the blooms stop forming into peas. The plants can go from looking pretty good to looking pretty bad practically overnight when the heat arrives. You do have to plant a lot of seed/plants to get an appreciable amount of peas. I plant 4 packets of seed in the spring and 4 packets in the fall in order to grow all we can eat fresh and have plenty left over to freeze and I tend to plant tall types that get 5' to 8' tall because they produce more peas per square foot for me than dwarf peas. I have found freshly-picked and freshly-frozen sugar snap peas are tastier than frozen sugar snap peas purchased at the grocery store. In a good season (and good is relative because we usually get too hot too early in spring and stay too hot too late in fall), I expect 20-40 lbs. of peas from my long pea bed. Tim and I eat all we get and could eat more if I could grow more, but even in our large garden, there's only so much space I'll give to something whose production is 'iffy'. Some years it gets very hot very early and we get nothing. That's a risk you face in planting many of the cool-season crops in a region like ours where the cool season can be incredibly brief. Peas are interesting. Even the ones touted as 'mildew-resistant' sometimes get PM and some of the ones not touted as 'mildew-resistant' seem to be quite resistant any way. When the taller ones yield well, they yield incredibly well. I've never been as happy with the yield on the small ones....and I give the smaller ones a 3' tall chicken-wire trellis to climb anyway. I feel like they do better when they have something other than each other to climb. For the fall, sow your seed in mid-August to early September and expect to begin harvesting, more or less, two months after the peas sprout. It is very weather dependant. For other fall planting dates and row spacing, etc. I've linked the OSU Fall Planting Guide. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Gardening Guide

I still had lots of food in the house, but DH told me to go ahead and stock up since he'll probably be on the road for 5-6 weeks this time and the immediate future of our para-transit sytem is iffy at best right now due to budget cuts. (We won't know its fate until March 19. On the 22nd, we'll either have it or it's immediately gone.) So, hey, I'm no dummy. I stocked up. Trader Joes - greek yogurt eggs Cheddar cheese bacon almonds frozen haibut frozen green beans frozen mixed veggies frozen mixed peppers frozen naan butter canned diced tomatos quinoa mustard Regular Grocery Store bread Tortillas raisins black beans lentils canned tuna (my lucky day - albacore at .79 a can!) 5# chicken breasts (on sale at .99 a pound!) 2# pork bag of baking potaotes 2 cucumbers 3 onions 2 gree peppers # asparagas quart strawberries 1/2 gal milk canned mixed fruit # bananas # mushrooms garlic limes flour olive oil freezer bags pinto beans # coffee 2 boxes tea bags On the clearance shelf, we found organic pommegranate juice, V8, cherry juice and peanuts for $1.00 eash. The store isn't going to carry them anymore. So we got two each of those. And I had coupons for two free bottles of laundry soap that expire at the end of the month, so I got those now. Total - too much. OTOH, I'm set for another 4-5 weeks except highly perishable items like lettuce or milk. (Althogh I have some canned milk if I really need it.) That doesn't include the things we get for DH to take on the road as I consider his road supplies separate from my grocery budget.