Yo Ho shipmates,
Most of us have tried all sorts of methods to get those beans to sprout. Back in the day, and I'm talking back when I saw the last dinosaur, beans were more shared than you might imagine.
Mostly cause the only way to get good beans was if you snagged a lid or two you might, (often enough) get enough stems and seeds that you don't need, LOL.... ( Acapulco Gold is bad a_s weed ) how many of you remember that old jingle, Ha-ha man those were good days.
Well, since those rare beans were so hard to come by lots of folks would try to, ( as HippyInEngland said ) get them to sprout using water, or later on a damp paper towel. There is a twist to this though. Some folks said that you should throw away any beans that float. PLEASE DON"T, I have had many of those floaters sprout. Compare seeds, and look closely at them, some have really tough shells.
There are a few dangers to sprouting with the paper towel method so you need to be well informed as to how do you do it. First, and formost is to not use chlorinated tap water, use distilled, and even then check that your paper towels don't have ink flowers and such. Some paper towels also were made with bleach impregnated into the fibers, so this is a no-no. Lastly you might consider dipping the paper towel into very hot water to remove any possible contaminates that might get on to it. Do this carefully cause the hot water will have a tendancy to dissolve you paper towel.
This practice was also started as a means to try and insure that the majority of your plants started off at the same time, or there abouts.
I have had many beans that I accidently killed, my hands are not the small, fine tuned, steady one's that are needed to be very delicate with handling a baby sprout, so I do it differently.
I prefer soil grows over-all, and I place each bean that I'm going to sprout into a plug of peat.
These compressed plugs will super expand when you soak them with enough moisture. I place the beans 1/4 inch deep and then just keep the plugs very moist. This method works well for me, and I'm satisfied.
That's where we are all at nowadays. We find our ways of doing things, and try to be satisfied, or try new things in hopes that the long run turn out will be in our favor.
The idea is to recognize that this applies to all of us, and if someone feels that their method is the shazang, then sharing the ideas is good for all around.
Here we talk, share, encourage, and try new things out. I am currently running a carefully documented grow of W/W under both LED, and CFL. The CFL's are 4 foot tubes, six of them, plus the LED is a 90 watt Illuminator. Truth is my babies are going super, and have never looked so good to me, but that doesn't mean that everyone should want what I like right ? so we keep on sharing as we learn.
Good Growing to all here, and may everyone end up with a bumper crop.
smoke in peace
KingKahuuna
