I grew Borlottis last year. They're quite easy. I just treated them like runner beans. i think that some of your list will need highr temps than you can get here. Also when you say FROM the cupboard do you mean you want to try and germinate pulses sold for food rather than seed? If so I don't think you'll have much luck as they will have been kept very dry and may be quite old. I doubt they'll germinate. My borlottis were from seed stock, not culinary beans(Franchetti, I think)

I have germinated mung beans bought from the supermarket without a problem; they are the ones to use for bean sprouts. Have never grown them on, though, but can't see why they wouldn't. Mmh, you're giving me ideas, Dampflippers!

Yes, I'm trying things from the kitchen cupboard eg green lentils (not spilt red lentils). The chick peas seem to be germinating well, but I'm not sure whther they will be tender.

I'm just about to do exactly this. I have just turned over the borders of the garden to the council flats I live in. I put lawn clippings under the soil and although the garden was under water until the last hot weather, I found the borders bone dry due to the trees next door. (Cuypressus.)

I know it's late but who cares? I've just made a batch of wallpaper paste in a 2L pop bottle to spread the beans with. I can't remember if they are harricourt or naval. But I got them from a supermarket intended for soup etc.

I have had no problem germinating packet peas -even after sousing in boiling water with a tablet of bicarb (which loosens the skin on them.)

They come up well even in a slug infested garden. Mind you I only planted them for a green manure. They were too hit and miss for a serious crop and not as tasty as they might be.

Peas don't come true but revert to any of the varieties that went into their breeding. Seed peas are selected to overcome that problem and that is why they cost so much more.

If I had culled them early and eaten them as petit pois or whatever the whole pod is called, it might have been better. They were tasty uncooked.

I put these beans in a thermos flask and left them there too long, forgetting they would expand. They all stuck together and I had to scrape them loose with a bread knife.

A soup tin full is sitting in the pop bottle beside me as I write. I am waiting for a bit more light in case my neighbours think I'm too wierd going out gardening this early.

The mix is made up with two or three soup spoon-fulls of wallpaper paste. Stiff enough to keep them in suspension but sloppy enough to let them pour out. (I hope.)

I dare say the blackbirds will get most of them as I just intend to spead them in lines along the back of the border. Some might make it though. I might cover them in some John Innes as I bought a bag cheap (end of season stuff.)

I did think about putting them an inch or so under but it is too much trouble. At about a quid for a packet that swells to three times that after soaking for three days, I have a lot of planting to do.

I'll let you know how I get on.

I have also got a stiffer mix made in a sauce bottle that holds flower seeds. I pushed the plunger out of a mastic cartridge with a long screw driver and the sauce bottle just fills it nicely.

I suppose I could have made that a little thinner but it was my first go. I shot it through a couple of times back into the bottle so I know the idea works.

If the idea is any good I have a load of seeds to try it on that I bought last week but they looked too fiddly to spread out the way I want. I will mix them all up in the pop bottle and see how broad they cast.

Half a litre in the sauce bottle should do about 6 feet I think, so the 2L of flower seed mixed with paste will do most of the border.

If it all goes pear shaped don't no one say nothin'.