Mature winged beans

I find winged bean plants very finicky. Yes, they may flower profusely – when they decide to start budding – but the fruit setting rate tends to be sporadic.

Of course, some of the plants I’m talking about had a rocky start. Silly me, I started growing them in a planter that has drainage holes in the bottom, and I left it out where the plants took root in an inappropriate location.

When I finally got over my dilemma of whether to move the planter or not, there was the question about whether the plants would survive the shock of breaking all those roots or not. Since they had to be moved, I had no choice in this matter.

Shortly before moving the planter, I doused the soil in it liberally with a strong dilution of seaweed solution because it helps plants to get over root shock.

The current trellis. I may add on to it if I get into a DIY mood…

It really does.

In fact, after setting the plants in the new location, I soaked the soil once again and pruned the plants down so they could focus their strength on growing their roots rather than struggle to keep the plants alive. That worked, and I set up an adjacent trellis to form an L-shape for the plants to spread out to.

Since the original four plants decided to reach for the new trellis only at its peak, I planted another three new plants at the base of the new section.

It’s been almost three months since I shifted the planter, and the plants have grown quite profusely. However, they stubbornly refused to start budding.

To counter their stubbornness, I’ve been feeding them weekly with different things – fish emulsion, seaweed solution, fruiting fertilizers – and although there were a couple of phases of budding, nothing worked.

Then I applied a fertilizer branded as “humus”, which has a 8:8:8 NPK balance. A week later, budding began, but no beans resulted. A week later, I fed them again with the humus. Finally, one bean resulted! So I gave the plants another dose, and things finally started happening.

Young winged beans. I quite like the curly tendril at the bottom of them!

The conclusion? I’d say that winged bean plants need the right “encouragement” to produce beans! That, and I need to learn more about the kind of medium they will grow well in.

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