It's not too late for edamame, but you would get the best results with an early variety, such as "Agate" or "Envy". With a little luck, you might even get some dry seed from them. Later varieties might still give you edamame too, but it would be close to the end of the season... so you would be hoping for a warm Fall.

Well, I went ahead and bought some seeds from the local nursery. I planted about 10 "spots" and put 3 seeds in each spot.

Three weeks later I'm only seeing a sprout from ONE of the spots. I went back to the nursery and asked them about it and the lady tells me that I wasn't watering them enough. I'm fairly new to this so I can't say for sure, but her explanation seemed kind of bogus.

The one sprout that has come up looks great. It has 3 really nice looking leaves and keeps growing.

Her explanation was that I wasn't watering enough so the roots were coming too close to the top because that's where the moisture is and then they dried out. I watered the whole area the same so I can't understand why one of them would grow so well and the others not.

Thinking about this made me remember reading something in a book or on web about how you're supposed to do something to the seeds before planting them. Of course, I can't remember the details.

It's probably too late to do another planting but I'd like to know for next year. I still have about half the bag of seeds left.

Thanks for any info.

If you have been as warm as it is here, soybeans should have very high germination. They love heat. One good soaking after planting, then enough water to prevent the soil from drying out until germination, should be adequate.

If you water with a hand-held sprinkler, and only watered once over the area, you probably didn't soak the soil deeply enough. It would take several passes.

It's also possible that the seed was planted too deep, or too shallow. In particular, seed planted too shallow would swell after the initial watering, but then die when it dries out. I get my best results covering with 1" of soil.

There is a fairly good chance that the seed was old or was damaged by heat. If the seed was exposed to direct sunlight, or if the package was kept in a hot enclosed location for awhile, it may have damaged much of the seed.

And lastly, it's possible that the seed did germinate, but birds or bunnies ate the seedlings.

Don't know if any of these was the problem, just throwing some ideas out there in case one of them rings a bell.