getting a jump on pole beans this year

[rxkeith]

last year was a bean fiasco for me.

i had planted over a hundred pole bean seeds of several different varieties, and maybe 12 came up due to cold rainy weather right after planting. should have paid better attention to the forecast.
so this year i started some seeds in doors, about 14 varieties 5 or 6 seeds of each. six varieties are new to me, and others haven't been grown in a few years, and need to be regrown. i am also trying to regrow a bush roma bean that i haven't grown in 10 years or so. seeds were just laying around. don't remember the name of them. they came in a trade with striato di italia a really nice looking and tasting zucchini. some of the beans send up little half runners.
the new varieties i'll grow around tomato cages. i poke one in the ground and put another upside down on top of it, lash it together with rope, and secure it to a stake to keep the whole thing from toppling over. you can plant a small amount of beans in a circle around the cages, and let them grow up. works pretty well. then if the beans do well, i like them, and most importantly, can i save the seeds they get a bigger space in the garden in the future.

i was going to get the garden roto tilled today, but a thunder storm came off the lake and hammered us with rain, and hail, so that will have to wait.



keith

[Doug9345]

Good luck with your beans. I have found that if I use a thermometer and check the soil temperature and wait until it is 63° or 64° degrees then I have enough of a cushion if the weather turns bad on me.

[kath]

Wishing you luck with your beans this year, Keith. I tried 8 varieties of pole beans last year and about 8 new ones this year. I'm using tomato cages in the same way you described to support some wimpy-vined tomatoes that I'll keep pruned, but we set up cattle panel raised about 2' on metal stakes on the north side of one of our beds for the beans this year. When the rain stops I want to add a strip of old plastic fencing material on the bottom so the vines can climb sooner...or maybe I'll just put a bamboo stake by each plant and attach them to the panel.

I started one plant of each variety indoors on the same day as I started seeds in the ground because I wasn't sure the weather/soil was warm enough yet, but they both came up and are about the same size now. Thanks, Doug, for the temperature tip- I can use that next year to make sure I get them started asap.

kath

[tjg911]

i too got a head start on pole beans this year. for the 1st time i started seeds inside in 12 or 16 oz cups. i started them on 5/6 along with winter squash and cukes. while this date seems to be fine for the winter squashes and cukes, it was way too early for pole beans! i had no idea they'd germinate so fast, typically i direct seed and wait and it seems to take more than the 4 or 5 days it did in the cups, more like 7-10 days in the ground.

i planned to put them out on memorial day weekend which is when i'd normally seed them. instead due to their size i put them out friday 5/18. the ground was a little cool and this is almost 2 weeks earlier than normal but the plants were 3 1/2 to 4" tall so i was concerned about holding them another 12-14 days. they seem to be doing fine.

3 of the 4 varieties are from you keith with my old standby favorite that i sent to you. i may be picking by mid july vs early august this year.

tom

[kath]

By the way, how much space do you leave between plants in a row? I googled and found everything from 4"-12" and on another thread here 18".

kath

[Doug9345]

I've used everything from 2" to 6". It depends on which particular seed germinate. I think 6" works well.

[Lcottomsvcs]

I am growing 4 varieties of pole beans this year, on stacked tomato cages also! I started doing this because I ran out of trellis poles, and kept doing it because it works.

Kath, about 4 inches works for me, but I agree with Doug9345, it depends on how they germinate. I always plant thick and thin a little.

[janezee]

I like 4-6", too. I usually plant 4 or 9/square foot these days, or one every 3 inches in a zig-zag pattern in rows. I prefer square foot, with this pattern

-x-x-x-x-x-x-
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
-------------------
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
x-x-x-x-x-x-x

with the ------being the trellis holding them up.

j

[JohnWayne]

I haven't so far planted any runner beans. They have performed so poorly the last few years I've lost heart. The runner beans I normally plant are McCaslin's. They are a flatened bean with great taste and the best crop I have ever had of them was one year at the first of may when the beans were up maybe 2 inches high and it snowed a few inches on them.

For trellis I have 2 4x4 posts 10 feet tall and 4 feet in the ground. I have telephone cable tied and stretched at the top and near the bottom of each post spanning 100 feet. At 33 and 66 feet I have 2 inch angle iron driven into the ground leaving a couple inches exposed and to that I have old bed rails clamped the cable is wired to the top and bottom of these rails.

The hard part of all this is retying the bailing twine every year. 1 every foot tied at the top and bottom. I planted half runner beans along it this go round. Once they are up and running, ( no pun intended ) I may go back and plant runners with them.

BTW, I didn't do so this evening because of an incoming storm, But most of the time I soak my bean seed in water with a small drop of dish soap ( Okra too ) for at least 4 hours and sometimes overnight but I have to be careful because I use a planter and if the seed sprouts, seems like the planter will ruin most of them.

Has anyone tried Scarlet runners ? I'm looking for input on them please. Thanks and good luck on your gardens !

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by JohnWayne

I haven't so far planted any runner beans. They have performed so poorly the last few years I've lost heart. The runner beans I normally plant are McCaslin's. They are a flatened bean with great taste and the best crop I have ever had of them was one year at the first of may when the beans were up maybe 2 inches high and it snowed a few inches on them.

For trellis I have 2 4x4 posts 10 feet tall and 4 feet in the ground. I have telephone cable tied and stretched at the top and near the bottom of each post spanning 100 feet. At 33 and 66 feet I have 2 inch angle iron driven into the ground leaving a couple inches exposed and to that I have old bed rails clamped the cable is wired to the top and bottom of these rails.

The hard part of all this is retying the bailing twine every year. 1 every foot tied at the top and bottom. I planted half runner beans along it this go round. Once they are up and running, ( no pun intended ) I may go back and plant runners with them.

BTW, I didn't do so this evening because of an incoming storm, But most of the time I soak my bean seed in water with a small drop of dish soap ( Okra too ) for at least 4 hours and sometimes overnight but I have to be careful because I use a planter and if the seed sprouts, seems like the planter will ruin most of them.

Has anyone tried Scarlet runners ? I'm looking for input on them please. Thanks and good luck on your gardens !

Have you tried Insuk Wang Kong? I have a bunch of seeds. I haven't been able to get them to set here in AZ but they seem quite heat tolerant.
Beautiful plants, I've grown them for the hummingbirds. I can send you some seeds if you like.

[kath]

Thanks for the input about spacing- I think I'll keep mine as they are and see how they do since they are now spaced at a greater distance than any of you mentioned. It's interesting how many different techniques there are for supporting them.

[rxkeith]

tom

the 3 varieties i got from you are planted.

i have always gone with 6 inch spacing for pole beans. anything greater than that is ok. darryl jones goes with 12 inch spacing. the bulk of my beans grow up fencing attached to t posts hammered into the ground. i have also used 8 ft furring strips, but the problem with those is they rot after a few years, and you run the risk of the whole set up falling over on a windy day. the tomato cages you can set in any small spaces, and you can isolate the beans somewhat if you are concerned about crossing.


keith

[Fusion_power]

Normal pole beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris) do best if you plant 3 beans per hill with 12 inches between hills in the row and 4 feet between rows. The reason for this is so that you can use a hoe to clean out weeds between the hills. This works out to 3 seed per ft or 1 bean every 4 inches if you average out the spacing.

Runner Beans (Phaseolus Coccineus) and butter beans (Phaseolus Lunatus) need a lot more room. I plant butter beans with 3 beans per hill and about 2 feet between hills in the row. I use the same spacing for Runner Beans but put 1 or 2 seed per hill.

It is important to move beans to a new area of the garden each year, otherwise nutrient extraction and disease build up will cut production. This means the trellis must be easily movable. I build my trellis with 8 ft tall T-posts with a post every 25 feet in the row and with heavy duty anchors on each end. I stretch a wire at the top of the posts and another about 15 inches from the ground. This leaves a nice gap beneath the bottom wire which allows weeding. Bean runners will readily cross a gap of 15 inches. I zig-zag hay baling twine from the top to the bottom wire so that there is a string for the beans to climb about every 2 to 2.5 feet. From start to finish, I can put up a 120 ft long trellis in just under an hour and take it down at the end of the season in about the same time.

DarJones

[tjg911]

kath,

i used to plant the seed 4" then 6" apart. you can crowd them but that's way too close! pole beans, at the ones i have grown, branch furiously and turn into a jungle that's hard to find the beans in. i use a trellis that's 7' 8" long. on 1 side i put 4 plants, just 4 and they'll fill in so much it'll be a jungle. the days of 10 or 20 seeds on the 1 side are over, picking was absolutely miserable and i don't need that many beans, 4 plants are plenty.

tom

[kath]

Originally Posted by tjg911

kath,

i used to plant the seed 4" then 6" apart. you can crowd them but that's way too close! pole beans, at the ones i have grown, branch furiously and turn into a jungle that's hard to find the beans in. i use a trellis that's 7' 8" long. on 1 side i put 4 plants, just 4 and they'll fill in so much it'll be a jungle. the days of 10 or 20 seeds on the 1 side are over, picking was absolutely miserable and i don't need that many beans, 4 plants are plenty.

tom

Thanks for weighing in, Tom. I have 16' of trellis space but 13 varieties of pole beans. Is it possible to trial a bean with only one plant?

kath