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Here is a link that might be useful: Gardeneer Nylon Netting

I cut 2 oak poles 10 ft long and spaced them 12 foot apart'and then cut two more and notched them out and screwed one on top from one pole to the other and same thing at the bottom' and I tie jute hay string's off of hay bales together and run them vertical top to bottom about 6 inches apart'you can buy it also by the roll.your 4 by 4's will work fine with 2by4's at top and bottom'I would have gone that route but i've got several acres of wood's just sitting here.somebody will be along soon to anser your question about planting in the same spot again. I dug out my clay and rocky soil and replaced with compost and top soil' i've growed in same spot for three year's with no problem. maybe this will help a little.

Thanks Violet and veg grower.
Veg grower......did you sink your oak poles down in the ground, and if so, how deep?
Violet.......I don't know why my cattle panels don't work so well for the beans and cucs to climb up.
The pics you showed with the galvanized conduit piping are like the ones I have in the barn.....only I would stick them in the ground about a foot. But I was wondering if the weight of all the beans, when they were full grown, could easily be blown over in a bad wind?

I forgot to say, if you use the conduit, you dont' need to push them into the ground, you can pound rebar in to the ground and then put the conduit over it. (Much easier.)

It is recommended to rotate all vegetables to prevent the build up of pests and diseases, including beans, the link below will bring you all sorts of info.

Another good thing about bean rotation is that beanse fix nitrogen into the soil for the following crop. So it is actually beneficial for your other plants to be planted where the beans were before because it's all natural slow release nitrogen fertilizer that other plants can benefit from.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rotating Beans

Hi Violet,
Good idea about the rebar!

catherinet' I used post hole diggers and went down 1ft6 inches but you can get by with a foot down'just make sure you pack the ground back in good. mine is what you would call HEAVYDUTY I believe it would with stand 120 mph winds[laugh].last year I tried steel pole's and hogwire and a gust of wind toppeled my 8 ft tall bean vine's nearly to the ground' that's when I decided it was time to go heavyduty.

I use 6x6 10/10 welded wire mesh (concrete wire) that is attached to the back of my raised bed. I used 6'-6" metal T-posts & 3'-0" o.c. Thus far it has done very well, no wind damage. I also use a similar method for cukes. I just moved the posts back 3'-0" and attached the wire at an angle. Underneath I pile up my grass clippings to keep from weedeating around the posts. The cukes hang down beneath the wire and I just snip them off each morning before work. At the end of the season I remove the clippings and add to the compost pile. I am going to try and get some photos uploaded sometime.

I've had a permanent bed for my beans for the last six years and I haven't had any problems so far. If you use the 4X4's you can take an old piece of small diameter rope and tie it across the bottom. All you need there is something to keep the wind from blowing your strings all over the place. At the end of the season you can untie the rope and get it out of the way while you work your ground. This has worked well for me.

Ernie

You guys are giving me lots of great ideas! I do worry about the wind out here in the country......so I may end up going with the cedar 4x4s.
Do you people just have one row of string, or do you have 2 rows, with the string on both sides of center creating an A-frame-type shape?
Ernie........I'm not quite understanding the reason for the rope at the bottom. Is that to anchor all the strings to? I'd love to see pictures if any of you have any.
Oh.....do you tend to put your long trellises in any specific direction? It would fit best in an east-west orientation in my garden, but it would get better sun if I did a north-south positioning. Thanks again!

catherinet,

It's the smoothness of the material of the panel and the conduit that can possibly make it more difficult for tendrils and hairs to "grab on to" they have black rubber spray paint, and again, string can help.

We used 3 foot rebar last year to support a 6 foot conduit arch. No problems with wind.

As for orientation, depends on which is more important to you: Want it to look better? Or do you want your plants to have be best opportunity to perforum optimally? It is always recommended to run trellises in a north/south direction vs east/west. If you have to run it east west, make sure the trellis is at the north end.

this is my bean trellis my DH built for me 4 years ago. This year we are going to convert it to a double row a-frame.

Here is a link that might be useful: My bean trellis

I used 5 ft. iron bars with wires running through the tops, then attached twine that ran from the wire down to the ground. This worked excellent for me, it even held up through a terrible wind storm that knocked everything else in my garden down! The beans I grew were VERY prolific, but the twine never broke once. Hope this helps!

catherinet' veggiecanners trellis is a good one to copy and build.everybody does things different way's.Ive tried useing wire at the bottom from pole to pole and couldnt get strings to tighten properly'maybe I didn't usec heavy enough gauge wire I dont really know'that's when I cut another pole and put at the bottom' now my string's are very tight.my garden spot[50 by 100 ft]is in the open so my trellis is set running east to west. oh yea my strings are attached to my poles one inside one outside back and forth.

hope this helps.

james

violet'wish i would have known about running north to south'mine is runnig east west I always heard to run a garden east west if possible'oh well guess mine will have to do can't afford to hire a crane to move it [laughing]

james

I lost a reply somewhere. so I'll try it again.
If I do use the galvinized conduit, it would just be for the frame, and then I'd use string for the beans.
Veggiecanner......really nice pics! I'm wondering about the trellis that is on the right side of the pic. Is that made out of steel conduit and what do you grow up it? Do you like that trellis too?
James......do you mean that you grow beans on each side of the poles......so that you have strings that sort of form an A-frame on your poles? Sorry I'm trying to picture things!

my bean plants are all planted on the same side'its just that when i run my jute up over the top pole I loop one over the nearest side 'then futherest side'otherwords stagger each piece of string.you can keep them all in a straight line if you won't to'I just prefer staggering them.
I need to invest in a camara 'sorry for not having pict's.
if you need any more suggestions feel free to ask.

james

James, no worries.

The principle is that running trellises North/South assures that the sun is not being blocked from reaching other vegetables as it moves across the yard during the day and trellised plants get sun from both sides.

Your lost reply is over at the beans forum.
I use both trellises for pole beans.
I don't see me moving my trellises either as all my beds run east and west too.
I have fittings to make electrical conduit into various shapes of trellises, The fittings are from those portable car ports.
I am going to use those to make some thing simalar to burpees bean tower this year. i have places to put 4-5 of those in the squash beds. i ussually plant squash and corn together, but I have so much canned corn, I don't need any this year.

Thanks veggiecanner..........I guess I added that post to the link you provided! hahaha I knew it was somewhere.

I have some {{gwi:34506}} that I put up and take down each year. It is attached to metal T post driven into the ground and is plenty strong. Strong wind does not bother it. It looks a little better than it does in the picture, it has not been stretched well there, plus, when it is covered with vines, blooms and fruit, it is about invisible and looks great.

Some things do well on it, cukes especially where the lateral vines have horizontal support to catch on to. The only problem that I have had with anything on it is when beans grow much longer than 6 feet and hang back down, covering up some of the beans and making picking them difficult. One year I had some {{gwi:34507}} that were eventually lot taller than the wire but standing erect and some high wind broke a part of the row of peas over the top of the wire resulting in my having to hunt for the peas.
Other than that, it is pretty easy and trouble free, but I am going back to planting some bush beans this year and growing some cukes on the trellis, I think.
Bill P.

Catherinet
I have a conduit frame that is 10' long and 7' high. I tie jute twine six inches apart to the top conduit and the bottom to the rope.
Ernie

To start off, Catherinet, I want to caution you on the jute twine. We have lots of sunshine here in the Summer and the overhead watering probably doesn't help it either. Jute won't make it thru my Summer without breaking. Ernie may be getting away with using it because his primary supports are conduit and rope (?). Of course, his bean foliage may be so dense and quick growing that the twine is well-shaded.

I had the embarrassing experience of recommending cotton string for trellises and then just throwing it in the compost . . . wrong!! Cotton string might have something else in it but it takes years and years to rot. I was pulling "globs" of it out of the compost and throwing it in the garbage years afterwards. (Afraid to look those I told it would compost in the eye. ;o) Sisal or plastic bailing twine is what I use these days - and it goes in the garbage after 1 or 2 seasons.

I pretty much gave up on anything other than teepees for pole beans, Catherinet. The veggie garden is very exposed and windy. Also, driving anything into the ground is really tough because the soil is so rocky. The 1 by 2 boards probably don't go very deep but they brace each other. Additionally, I run a board across the top of each of them so the teepees are tied one-to-the-other at the top.

A neighbor put his unused swing frame in the garden and leaned plastic pvc pipe on it. I though, "well, that will never work" - thought the vines would just slide down the slick plastic. They didn't slide . . . Scared to recommend it tho', it might turn out like my cotton string in the compost fiasco.

Steve

I agree with Digit's recommendations on twine. When I lived in SoCal, jute worked fine for me; but when I moved to the Midwest with its wetter summers & strong winds, it proved too prone to breaking. Sisal lasts all summer easily, and is very economical when purchased in the large bailing sizes. At the end of the season, I just burn it in the garden. And as much as I hate using non-biodegradable materials, the orange synthetic bailing twine is excellent for tying things to T-posts.

Like several others here, I use T-posts as the vertical support for my trellises. They are very durable, come in many lengths, can be moved easily, and have a rugged non-slip surface to tie things to... and I have never had them blown down by strong summer storms.

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In addition to the T-posts, I use long lengths of rebar as top & bottom bars, with lengths of sisal twine tied vertically between them. I once used synthetic twine for the horizontals, but the surface was too slick, strong winds would bunch all the verticals together & tear the vines. The rough surface on the rebar prevents this, and also bears more weight. I found an easy way to attach the rebar to the top of the posts, using a 1.25" PVC "T", with the rebar running through the "eye" to link all the poles of the trellis. Catherinet, if you have long pieces of conduit, they would work well in place of the rebar.

Using a top bar requires that all the poles be driven to roughly the same depth; I painted a line on the pole driver, that is at eye level when the poles are 6 1/2 feet high.

This system is fairly easy to set up & tear down, and flexible enough to accommodate many different lengths as the need arises. While most of my trellises are string, you can also attach fencing or concrete remesh between the poles. This works well for the more rampant tomatoes, or for trellising squash or melons.

Thanks everyone!
Wow Zeedman......what incredible beans you have! So you're saying that you only used horizontals and no verticals and they still climbed that good?? Beautiful pics zeedman! Are those those asparagus beans? I'm impressed!
I sure appreciate everyone's suggestions!

I made some industrial strength trellisses out of drill stem and cattle panels; they will probably outlast me !!!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:34508}}

Catherinet, those are asparagus beans in the closeup photo, with pole beans just poking in from the left. It's nearly impossible to see the strings, but there are both horizontal & vertical strings, tied in a lattice. The vertical strings in my trellises are from 6-12" apart, depending upon the plant spacing.

You could probably get by with just the verticals in a sheltered area... but as you can see from the second photo, my garden is completely exposed to the wind. The horizontal strings provide additional reinforcement, and prevent the vines from sliding down in strong storms (a problem that I used to have with poles or single strings). Plus, some of the lateral branches climb out on the horizontal strings.

Gary, now that's what I call a top bar!!! Impressive trellises, you weren't kidding about "industrial strength"... I'll bet you could hang watermelon vines on those babies! So I guess when the oil stops coming in, you can always chop up the rig and grow pole beans. ;-)

Wow Gary!
Your cattle panels look wider than mine. Mine are only about 4' wide.
So you guys don't think that horizontals "confuse" the beans as they're growing upwards?
As I said awhile back, I have a cattle panel bent into the shape of an arch, and beans and cucs seem to really hesitate growing up that. I read somewhere that the horizontals can confuse them, so I was thinking of growing them up just verticals, but it sounds like they can easily slip down them in wind. Maybe its the curve in my arch-trellis that slows them down?

P.S. Do any seed places sell those asparagus beans? I haven't seen any.

OK I finally got some photos. Here is my cucumber trellis on the left and my Pea/Bean trellis on the right. I hope the photo uploads.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:34509}}

Catherinet, I've used cattle panels in an arch for several years for my beans, and they have done well on them--I'm not sure what the problem may be with yours.

It's my favorite way to grow the beans now, because the way most of them are left hanging down inside the arch makes them so easy to pick, and you get to pick them in the shade!

I tried teepees, but couldn't find the beans in the tangle towards the top.

THis year I'm going to try growing some additional beans on some extra CRW tomato cages, to save on space. That worked very well with sugar snap peas and cucumbers last year.

I've got asparagus bean seeds from Baker Creek (www.rareseeds.com http://rareseeds.com/seeds/Long-Beans) and larger quantities from Harvest Moon Seeds (www.felcopruners.net http://www.felcopruners.net/index.php/cPath/146_153).

You can also find them called yard long beans or just long beans

Leigh

Here is a link that might be useful: Baker Creek Long Beans

Thanks Leigh,
Well, maybe I'm just a bad pole bean grower, no matter what kind of trellis I use! lol! I do have trouble beating those weeds back! Do you add any kind of string to your arches, or just help them to go upwards when they start going sideways?

I don't add any strings to the arch, but I do help the beans get started in the right direction. I haven't noticed a real problem with them growing sideways once they've started, though.

For weeds, I'm in the newspaper and mulch camp for my beds. Works very well for me, which is good because I'm a lazy weeder with a toddler and a two-month-old!

Leigh

Leigh,
I just got around to checking out those links you gave me, and Harvest Moon Seed Company is only about 2 hours from here! I didn't even know they existed! How have your dealings been with them? Thanks!

Most everyone around here uses the same setup. We put up 4 inch wooden poles about 12 feet apart. Then run 3 horizontal runs of galvanized electric fence wire from one end to the other spaced top and middle of poles, and lastly about 10 inches above ground. Then using a ball of cotton twine, just do a running zig-zag pattern verticaly over the 3 wires starting at one end of the row and ending at the other.Loop it over the top wire, one turn around the center wire and loop around bottom wire and back up to center,... ect.It leaves a pretty pattern and is very tough.

I ordered from harvest moon seeds and they did pretty good, I am still using some of their seeds that I bought 3 years ago.

Catherinet,

I've order a number of things from Harvest Moon (seeds for tomatoes, beans and herbs) and been very pleased with the results. Good-quality seeds, well-packaged, good service.

Leigh

Thanks everyone!

Well catherinet, did you visit them?