Beans for Deer Update

Brief update on The Great Bean Experiment.  

If you are wandering in late, here's the deal.  Our family recently bought some hunting land "up north".  Last year we did pretty basic improvements, but from some perspectives the entire point of having such a property is to keep you permanently busy with upgrades.

In particular we want the White Tail deer population there to be happy, contented, plump and, er, tasty.  So we planted a few All You Can Graze food plots.  But wait, there's more.

One of my sons has access to beans.  Lots of them.  Assorted types.  I got about 30 pounds for Christmas.  I planted several varieties, just to see what would grow with minimal help.  As it happens, all of them did ok.  Admittedly using potting soil, but also middle of winter on a chilly countertop.  Germination rates varied, but 50% to 80%.  Not bad.

Eventually I took one or two promising specimens of each and transplanted them for further testing.  The rest went outside to provide fresh greens for whatever critters skulk around our compost bin.  Here's how things look with about six weeks of very indifferent care:

Not  bad.  Not bad at all.  I was more than a little 

surprised to see they had decided to be climbers.

The varieties of beans under scrutiny are Pinto, Black and Navy, all supposedly bush type beans.  But near as I can tell from casual research, even these varieties have gangly adolescent stages.

Now that I am officially a bean farmer, you might wonder just what we'll do with these.  Subject to the usual contact with the real world, here's the theory.

Deer will much anything green and growing right down to the ground, probably to the demise of said beanie plant.  But our supply of dried beans is substantial, and they appear willing to grow with only modest help.  So we'll probably go here and there in the cleared areas of the hunting land and just chuck large numbers of beans out into the world every couple of weeks.  Sure, many will be chow for mice, squirrels and other critters, but some will grow.  I'm thinking some sort of catapult would actually be the most efficient way to get them out there.  I mean, if you have your own bit of land why not use it to deploy small medieval siege engines?