In the latest episode of Totally Crazy Easy Gardening, I demonstrate how to germinate sea beans:

In the comments I was asked if sea beans are edible. Unfortunately, most are not… but they’re certainly beautiful and they do have their uses in crafts, carving and even as mancala pieces.

I germinated a sea bean before but it was a Mucuna urens, which is a different species from the ones I’m germinating right now. I can’t nail down exactly what these things are, but the nickname for them is “donkey eyes.”

The vines are now almost 3′ long and haven’t put out a single leaf yet… they’re reaching for the sky! I need to transplant them ASAP and see what they grow into. I find the pods along the riverbanks here or caught in debris in the stream, but I can’t for the life of me find any of the actual plants. My guess is that the sea bean vines are growing so high up in the rain forest canopy as to be impossible to observe from below.

It’s an interesting experiment. I’ll post photos when the vines get a little bigger. Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel as I’ll be posting five more videos as part of the “30 Videos in 30 Days” challenge!

You won’t want to miss the finale…