I'll let you know. I'm planting both bush (Jade) and pole (Blue Lake) in my SFG with Mel's Mix. They haven't sprouted yet but hopefully they will soon. I hadn't read about different soil requirements for beans.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden experience

I found this information when I googled growing green beans: "Beans like a moderately rich soil with a slightly acidic pH of about 6.0 to 6.2. They prefer a loose, moist soil. Plant after all danger of frost is past."

This tells me that Mel's Mix would be just the thing to plant beans in. I just planted yard long beans "Red Noodle" this morning. Will let you know. One thing I forgot to do is innoculate them. Too late now. I also have some fava beans I bought from Italy. Will plant those this week along with some regular pole beans.

Hey Darth/Sinfo...I had planted only bush beans until last year. I ended up still planting bush beans in a few squares, but, I did grow pole beans in my 1X4 box. They were exceptional! They were heavy producers and they went for a lot longer than I expected...I never heard of different requirments for beans either.....

Good to hear! A 1x4 box is exactly what I'm thinking of building for my Scarlet Runner beans this year. What form of trellising did you use for those?

Darth..I use the same trellis system that you see in the pictures you put up on the website...1/2" electrical conduit with nylon netting-8' tall. I have 4 tomato plants on the one trellis you see on the right side of the photo....

Ok, question about the nylon netting. I used it for years, and one difficulty is removing the pole bean vines at the end of the season. It takes some work to cut the plants out, and the nylon string ends up in poor shape.

The last few years I used wire mesh, probably with about 6" squares. It's a lot heavier and I found it easier to clean out the vines at the end of the season.

Anyone else notice this?

I like the nylon netting a lot myself. Easier to handle than wire, and doesn't heat up the same way in the sun. I just waited until after a few hard frosts in the winter to remove my tomato and other vining plants from the mesh. Once the frost had made them dry and brittle they came out easily without any visible damage to the mesh. Admittedly it was ugly for a while, but much easier to clean up in the long run.