PLANT: Kidney & Black Beans
SITUATION: Grocery Store Bought
PROBLEMS: Kept Withering
RESOLUTION: Extensive Research. Came to conclusion to stop until I have my outside garden and not kill anymore bean babies.
LOG: Beans where actually pretty easy to germinate in both moist paper towel and the soil method. Grew surprisingly fast and tall in less than 2 weeks.
UPDATE: 11-16-2020. Found 3 germinating in their past soil that was shared with other plants lol. 2 are on their own pot and 1 sprouted out of Ms. Ginger's potting soil. Oops.
Planting bean on soil is best for it by laying it down bellybutton to the side so as its roots grow out, it will feel the soil and plant itself to give it enough root depth and structure in order to lift its stem and baby head (the bean) and sprout into the two beginning leaves after loosing it's hard outer shell. As if waking up from a long nap and throwing down the blanket that once kept it warm and covered. =].
It was a beautiful sight to see them grow so strong and willing to grow indoors in our little apt. =].
Until randomly, they began to wither. Not knowing the true cause,feeling sad, thibking possibly due to living in an aptarment they possibly were getting over watered by I and not enough direct sunlight other than window sill and grow light to help drain and dry up the soil properly. Not willing to give up. I convince myself to keep trying and to become the Queen of the Beans, "La Reyna de los Frijoles", and began to germinate more Kidney and Black beans in soil and let nature take its course.
Well not only did nature take its course, but so did my onions by killing my poor bean babies.=/.
As my second batch die, I wasn't understanding why. They seemed to be growing nice and strong ready to give me more beans and then they just began to wither slowly and I felt them cold as the life was being taken from them by my evil onions.
You see, I didn't know that any plant from the allium family (leeks, garlic, onion, etc.) cannot be near certain plants one of them being my beans because they produce a substance that kills beneficial bacteria on the bean roots which was preventing my beans to add nitrogen to their soil and grow as they could of and where trying to so bad.
I moved them away from each other and made sure to research which of my plants and veggie scraps could go together or had to be part from each other since I learned my lesson the hard way. And didn't want any more of my plant babies to die due to my lack of knowledge and research.
Picture below does exhibit my bean corpses as well as pencil shavings. Not because it's my garbage disposal but because pencil shavings keeps gnats away due to most pencils being made from cedar wood, which is biodegradable, and helps to dry up the soil keeping not just gnats but any other tiny little pest away.
Just as they made the effort to thrive n keep growing as much as they were able to, then I should also put that same effort into not just growing my plants but understand each specific need and care each may need.
After all, they're all different.=].
UPDATE: Previously, my bean babies weren't so lucky; therefore, I weeded out all the dried beans stems from soil and repurposed soil for other plants that were planted.
As the weeks passed by I noticed that two black beans had germinated in their past soil which was repurposed for other plants. Sooooo, I decided to give them their own self watering pot and this is them 5 days ago.
And this is them NOW. 11-16-2020.
Yaaaaaayyyyyy!!!! Looking good so far.
And cannot forget my 3rd bean gem which has sprouted in with Ms. Ginger.which I did make the decision to leave it with the ginger so I wouldn't disturb its growth and does not harm either plant baby. On the other hand the ginger thrives sharing soil with legumes due to legumes fixing the nitrogen in soil helping the Ginger's overall growth. =].
So beautiful. Just like momma=].
Crossing finger and hoping for the
best!