I haven't myself.

Beans need warm soil that isn't too wet as they rot easily. If I were to try I'd wait until end of May. I just direct sow when the soil temp gets about 65-70 and night temps are about 50-60 and within days I have seedlings. I heard too that Beans don't like to be transplanted much.

Linda I agree with Vera. My neighbour tried starting her beans indoors last year and had lots of healthy-looking plants growing in those little peat discs. She planted them out the same time I direct-sowed mine, and none of them survived.
Northerner

I guess I'll be direct sowing them into the container with my tomato seedling when the last frost has passed by.

I'm suprised that more people haven't grown bush beans.

Last year I indoor-started some in 3" peat pots and they turned out fine. Maybe the peat pellets were just too small? This year I'm going to try WSing them in mid-April when I do my annuals. I'll let you know if it works out.

And if they don't...I'm a newbie. I'm allowed to try potentially dumb things because I don't know any better, right? : )

~Kristi

I have some Empress bush bean seeds from SSE and I had planned on just starting them outside.

I've not winter sown them. I did, however, dump over 300 bushels of grocery store green beans into my lasagna garden last year. Much to my surprise they sprouted and I had green beans all summer.

My layering happened to coincide with "after last frost" so I'd vote direct sow when it warms up.

Good luck