You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
Zone 5 here. I need a simple method to grow pole beans...I don't have tools or much know how so it has to be simple.
Neither do I have saplings. I can buy bamboo. How do i join them so they don't fall down when beans get heavy.
Thanks.
For snow, peas, I made a pup-tent-shape framework with 5 poles: 4 legs and one long backbone.
That could work for pole beans if you made it tall enoguh. Beans could grow up each leg of each "W".
I make a bipod by lashing two poles together at the top. I like waxed twine for lashing.
I make a second bipod.
Spread their legs apart and push their feet into the soil, so the tops are as far apart as the long pole.
Drop the long pole on top of the tripods so the forks basically support the weight of the pole.
Lash the pole to the bipods so they don't flop over.
Then I run two flimsy poles from one bipod to the other, a few inches above ground level - call these footers.
Then I weave light cotton twine from the top pole to a footer, like many "W"s. WWWWWWWW.
Then make more "W"s on the other side.
I also weave back and forth from footer to footer, so snow peas in the middle of the tentg have something to grab as they climb toward the "wall of Ws".
You can't see much here, just an overgrown mess after I added more strings to capture random floppy vines.
I'll see if I can find a shot of the poleds and strings before the peas grew.
Now I have a fussy neighbor who loves to make trouble. I'm sure she would wait until the peas were half-grown and then get park management to demand I take it down. I'll have to find something "more sightly".
Imagine a clothesline. Two very stout supports with a metal line inbetween. Tie strings about four inches apart from the line to the ground. Your beans will grow up the strings.
This is the way we used to grow beans when I was a child
This pole bean is supported in the center with a piece of 8 ft. conduit stuck in the center of the pot and then string comes from the edge of the pot to a cross piece of conduit at the top
Some people take 3 long poles and lean them together T P style and tie them at the top with string and allow the beans to climb the poles. 2x2s by 8ft would be good for this with the bottoms leaning at least 2ft if not 3ft out at the base.
