what a sight.

Those are nice looking beans. Are they used as snaps, shells or as dry normally?

Can you describe your trellis structure in the picture above?

thanks,
Dean

Dean, "Pole 191" is used as a snap. For about 15 years, it was my main crop snap bean, and I bought new seed every year. When Ferry Morse dropped it in the 80's, that put my feet on the path that led me to seed saving.

You know, Dean, I've described my trellis system several times, but never took good photos of it - they were always covered with vegetation. If it weren't for the darned rabbits destroying most of the seedlings, this trellis wouldn't be visible either... and I couldn't demonstrate the full size of a pole bean plant. Every dark cloud has a silver lining I guess - I just wish this dark cloud was lined with rabbit fur! ;-) In the top photo, the details described below are clearly visible.

The poles are 7.5 foot fence poles, driven about 1&1/2 feet into the ground with a pole driver. Each pole is topped with a 1&1/4" PVC "T" fitting. I run 3/8" rebar rod through the T's on top, and tie an equal length of rebar rod to the bottom of the poles, about 6-8" off the ground (I plastic cable ties). This is the basic frame for the trellis.

The pole spacing varies, depending upon how much weight the trellis will be carrying. For beans & bitter melon, I use about 5 feet between poles. For climbing cucumbers or squash, I can either use 3-4 feet between poles, or use 1/2" rebar for the top support in place of the 3/8".

String is run horizontally between the poles (I use plastic baler twine for this). Then I run vertical strings (of some natural fiber) between the top & bottom rods, wrapping it twice around each horizontal string on the way down. I generally use brown baler twine for the verticals, since some beans (such as yardlongs) dislike artificial materials. The spacing of the verticals depends upon the plant spacing, and on how rampant the vines will be... but no less than one per plant.

You could probably just run the vertical strings, but the horizontals add a lot of stability. The advantage of the rebar rods on top & bottom is that the vertical strings will not move during high winds.

For the rebar rod, I use 20, 10, and 5 foot lengths; I can combine these (bound with cable ties) to match any length of trellis.

There are variations of this; you can use construction remesh or fencing attached to the frame. While this is quicker to erect & remove than a string trellis, I seldom use a steel trellis. There is a considerable amount of work required initially to straighten out the fencing, plus the storage issue.

I had mentioned the use of trellises & corn as windbreaks. This is the view looking toward the northwest corner of my garden:

You can see why my grandchildren like to play hide-and-seek in the garden. ;-)

Thank you Zeedman for the great photos and the writeup on the trellis system. This is the most complete description of the trellises that I have seen. On the other hand, I am not yet finished with all the archives of this forum.

If I spend too much time on the archives my dear wife wonders how anyone could be so interested in beans! On the other hand she and my kids love to pick them.

Those pictures are to die for! I want my beans to look like that! Thanks so much for the description, photos, etc.

~Angela

Wonderful garden pics!
Remy

Amazing....I'm awestruck. Do you amend your soil with anything special? I am going to be following these instructions for sure this year.

zeedman, I remember you mentioning the name of those runner beans on the left in the bottom photo. Could you please post it here?

DarJones

"Do you amend your soil with anything special?"

No, other than turning in the mulch (I use about 25 bales of marsh hay per year) and adding some grass clippings & leaves when I can. The soil is fertile silt loam, and I grow legumes on about 25% of the garden area to add nitrogen.

"zeedman, I remember you mentioning the name of those runner beans on the left in the bottom photo. Could you please post it here?"

Fusion, that was "Tucomares Chocolate", a brown-seeded runner bean.

Zeedman, since the beans are growing in the same area each year, do you have problems with disease, soil depletion, etc? Nice setup, by the way.

Kim

Kim, the organic matter (25 bales of hay mulch per year, plus the veggies I turn under) seems to prevent soil depletion. The large number of legumes I grow helps maintain the nitrogen... 38 legume varieties last year, and that was a bad year. Most years I grow 50+.

The legumes - like all of the other vegetables - are rotated each year to the greatest degree possible. This takes a considerable amount of planning, with maps of the previous two years beside me as a reference. Not my favorite task, but it pays off in healthy plants, and is also the way I map out my isolation strategy for seed saving.

Occasionally part of a row may overlap the location that the same species was grown the year before, especially for soybeans, which I plant throughout the garden. Those plants will be weak & stunted, but fortunately this happens seldom. Beans do not seem to be as particular, I've grown pole beans in pots in consecutive years, and the second year showed no sign of weakness.

Fungal wilt is a persistent problem in my area, and attacks nearly everything to some degree, beans included. I generally just pull affected plants at the first sign of infection. Rarely, ant-borne aphids spread it rapidly enough to wipe out a row; but most years, insect predators control the aphids enough to prevent this.

Only once did I have a severe disease problem for legumes; something that was causing tip die-back in mung beans & adzuki. Mung beans had begun to volunteer heavily one year, so I let them grow in several patches. The wilt began wiping them out just as pods were beginning to ripen. Tilling, I believe, just spread it throughout the garden, and I gave up growing all Vignas in my main plot except for cowpeas, which seem to be immune.

So how far do you space these? It looks like a foot and half or so in the pictures. I don't think I spaced my beans far enough this year.

I agree with Zeedman on wider spacing making more beans. I usually plant beans 6 inches apart, but last year planted Chester with only 6 plants in a 6 foot trellis and got more dry seed by weight than all the other varieties, over 30 oz dry weight. So this year many of my beans are about a foot apart.

Thanks for the advice. I really think that the yields this year suffered because of the inadequate spacing.

Wow! 12" between plants?! I've never heard of planting that far apart. They look great! Ill have to experiment with the spacing next year.

Ressurecting this nice old thread:

So is 40 plants in a 10 Ft row way too much? My beans are about a foot tall right now, should I cull half the plants to allow for better spacing to at least 6 inches? Pic below is from last week. I'll try to get a better closeup next time I am home.

{{gwi:145171}}

Sorry about the lousy picture, Need an actual camera instead of my old crappy phone. Here is my spacing. I think I'm going to thin them out a bit.

I read this zeedman thread in 2009 and in 2010 (I think those were the years). I tried wider spacing with yard long beans and it did give me more vigorous plants. I planted them 8 inches apart if memory serves. I did not weigh the beans but they were VERY vigorous. This year I am growing Black Jungle Butter Beans and will space them at about 8 - 10 inches - report back at end of season.

DL

Just thought I would bump this thread back up to the top of the list since is contains so much good trellis and spacing information. - Dick

It's my first time growing pole beans, I built a make shift trellis, but I'm not sure if it's going t be too crowded now. I planted 3 varieties blue lake, Kentucky wonder, and rattlesnake. I used my earthway seeder with the bean plate. Do you think this is enough space or is it gonna be a pain to get in between? I only have about a foot in between rows.

That looks like a well-tended garden. Are there 4 rows of pole beans, along those 2 trellises? And are there 2 rows of bush beans between the poles & the garden edge?

The issue is not so much whether you have access, it is
whether the sun will be able to penetrate to the inner rows when the vines are fully grown. You are
located in a lower latitude, so the sun will be much higher in the sky than it is
here. I can't tell your row orientation; if those rows run E-W, you
might be able to get away with 36" spacing between rows (which was
successful for me in San Diego) but those poles look closer than that.
As the vines grow, they will shade each other, and the yield will be
reduced on about the lower 1/2 of the shaded vines.
The Earthway bean
plate (I have one too) might be tolerable for bush beans, but IMO that
spacing is much too close for pole beans. That is especially true in your humid
climate, where poor air flow can promote disease. Hopefully others from
the humid South will chime in, but my suggestion would be to thin those
plants to at least 12" apart... and more than that, if two adjacent rows will be sharing the same trellis.

The rows are oriented north to south, I have about 26 inches between the poles. I'll think them out to get a proper spacing of 12 like you guys recommend. I planted 2 rows within a row, so they are going to be sharing the trellis. The front row is also pole beans, so i think i might have been a ill ambitious planting so many, so close. I'll keep you guys updated. I've been working on this post for the past year, it's finally starting to take shape.

Here's the whole plot

I also planted a row of Contender Bush beans

I have a bean labeled "Kentucky Wonder, white seeded"...but it says bush on the label??? Is there a bush and a pole, or can this be mislabeled? I just planted them today! I would have chosen an entirely different place for them if I thought they were pole beans??

I plant my beans quite close together, because sometimes rabbits eat most of the plants. Last year, ALL of them in one area. Sigh. Darn rabbits.