I don't know much about re-seeding. How many plants did you get from it? More than the original crop? How is/was the yield?

What are mung beans? Are they tasty? How do you use them?Can you compare them to a more mainstream vegetable so I can guess what they taste like? (as far as I know, there are no mung beans in Japan.) Hmm... wanna trade?

Eric in Japan

Interesting questions about reseeding. But what occurs in my garden shouldn't be taken as representative of what would happen in any other garden.

Mung beans are the small beans which here in the USA are most often used for "bean sprouts." Mine grow about thigh high and upright, bushy, tidy. Evidently this is one of the peas popular in India as dahl.

The mung beans were not planted by me in the first place! I am still trying to figure out how they got there. As far as I know, I have not bought any mung beans, except as "bean sprouts" and those, had they not all been eaten, would not have survived that vulnerable state in the compost pile. My husbad sometimes buys various types of Indian dahl, and I understand mung beans are popular as dahl; however I think they are usually split before being sold. So I shouldn't have expected any split dahl/mung beans to germinate. Plus, I just don't think we threw any out in the garden or compost.

But to answer your question about whether the beans increase in number--I would say the number stays steady. I had about six plants the first year, and about that many each year after. The area where they grow gets a leaf mulch every fall, but most of it is lifted in spring. Some of the area gets turned a bit some years, but none was turned this year. I'm not sure what differnce in bean survival is made by digging vs no-diggging and mulching vs no-mulching.

Anyway, I suspect that mung beans could almost naturalize in the right conditions.

Yardlong beans--I think I had only about six of these vining beans last year. I grew them up a trellis behind some shrubs. I found three that had reseeded this year. However, I had weeded off that area probably three times before I noticed the beans. So I probably actually pulled up some yardlong beans when they were small. (I am trying to get rid of morning glory in that area.) Again, this is an area that gets leaf mulch, but the soil never gets turned or even scuffled for weeds.

Eric, I was looking yesterday at your website about your home and garden. Very interesting. I hope you will be able to add to it as things progress. I look forward to reading and seeing more about your endeavor.

I don't see why peas wouldn't reseed, but here's a few thoughts:

They would have to be open-pollinated (OP) & not hybrids. I believe most pea varieties are OP, but check your kind(s). Good seed catalogs should tell you, but some don't.

They would have to be ripe (leaving them on the vine or bush should do that).

Peas are generally planted an inch or two deep, which probably would mean that you would have to step in and bury thwem or stir up the soil, or add compost of some kind. If they're just sitting on the surface, they would probably dry out after sprouting.

Hey, try it and see! And be sure to let us know!

'Pup