Baby bean plants flowering... still indoors... ???

[tankgirl73]

Among all my indoor-started plants (last frost here is May 20), I have one lonely bean plant. I'm not starting beans indoors as a rule, they grow just fine direct-sowed, but when I was doing all my seed-starting DD (age 3) wanted to do some too, so we sprouted a bean seed so she could watch it sprout, then we planted it, and it's grown fantastically!

However, it's only like... I dunno, 8" tall, it's only got a few 'shoots', and it's starting to flower!

Should I just let it flower, will it continue to grow and flower and fruit normally? Or should I pinch these off until it gets bigger? (Or at least gets outside!!)

[lunarlady]

I think you should pinch or clip off the flowers. But then agian, one bean plant isn't really going to be a huge loss if it just goes to waste because you let it follow its own schedule. You could do a little bio experiment with DD and try to fertilize the flower. Just rub one flower with a Q-tip, then rub it in the other flowers. You never know, it might even grow a bean indoors.

[tankgirl73]

We have indoor beans now!

I decided to pinch the flowers of my cucumbers and let them wait until they're outside, but we're letting the bean go however it wants. I saw another thread about how early flowering like this means they're root-bound but I doubt that's actually the case here, they're actually in fairly large pots and the plants are relatively small.

Anyway, the bean plant has 2 little baby beans on it and DD is so excited! We didn't hand-pollinate or anything, I was actually surprised when I noticed them!