Help needed from growers beans

[WendyS]

Anybody out there who has grown Blue Lake or Cobra climbing beans? And the purple dwarf French beans? Every year I have problems growing these varieties from seed. They either rot or fail to germinate. Consequently I lose time in succession planning because I keep having to resow them.

I also germinate & grow runner beans and the pink striped (borlotii type) beans without problems.

Any expert out there know what I'm doing wrong?

[muddie]

I grow bush and climbing french beans, and know they can be tricky. From experience I now -

1. use only fresh good quality peat-based compost like Levingtons and put 2 beans in a module of a 5x3 cell tray, I suppose a 2 1/2 " pot would be the same

2. Don't soak the beans before sowing, and water well only once between sowing and the first leaves appearing

3. Put the tray/pots on a heated bench or propagator at 16 deg.C and put another seed tray or a cover on top to keep the moisture in

4. Sow between the new moon and the full moon, not the other way round.

Good luck!

[WendyS]

Thanks muddie - glad I'm not the only one who's had problems getting them to germinate. Am now on my third sowing and have really reduced the watering level this time so you may well be right about what has been causing my problems in the past. On the topic of compost, I've found some of the stuff I've purchased from garden centres really horribly in recent years. I think it must be too acid and made from rotting down all the tree clippings which get dumped in Local Authority tips. Am even having problems with Levingtons at the moment so think I'll use my own next year.