Topic: supporting your beans and peas

[Robert_Brenchley]

Robert teepee and wigwam not same:

I do know the difference, but if I claim to be growing my beans up a teepee nobody over here will have any idea what I'm doing. Whether it's historically correct or not, in gardening terms we always call it a 'wigwam'.

[antipodes]

Oh dear you are all scaring me a bit! I am HOPELESS at anything DIY type, but this year I want to have a go at runner beans. Can you tell me exactly how massive one plant grows? Judging by the low number of beans in a seed packet I am guessing that one plant grows quite big. I was hoping to just make a couple of bamboo "pyramids" (OK for the pedants, not quite the right term but I understand myself) and maybe connect them at the top with another thinner cane. WIll that be sufficient???  How high will they grow? And how many seeds should I plant per metre?

[Robert_Brenchley]

I find 8-foot canes make a perfectly adequate wigwam. I grow two plants per cane, and its usually sensible to put in some extra seeds as germination isn't always that good. If you put start them in pots under cover about the end of April or the beginning of May, they're usually ready to plant out at the right time. Unless you get a summer like the last one, that is, when my beans were hit badly by June frosts.

[brown thumb]

one of my local garden suppliers sell a  plastic ring  which you then push up 10 bamboos  into ready made slots which makes  a wigwam shape held fast all through the winds ( and i planted 3 beans around each pole =30 beans) at 99p ago well worth it i grew sweetpeas up another

[aj]

I use muntys - I have about 4 around the plot; and if I have a spare space I pop 4 seeds in a small square and shove an 8ft cane in the middle, at an angle of about 70 degrees, so that the beans hang down, I don't lose any growing space and nothing gets shaded.

[Deb P]

I use a variety of methods to support plants, including 'strung' wigwams of different sizes for beans, peas and mini squash...



Metal frames with bamboo supports for peas, beans, tomatoes and larger squash...



..and willow for sweet peas....

[davyw1]

Some nice pictures of various methods but at the end of the day its what you have at hand to make your frame with and mainly what you find the easiest for ones self.

I think the most versitile method i have seen was using drainpipe, hole drilled in at a angle chris cross and bamboo cane slotted through thin end first. the bamboo could only go down as far as you wanted according to the size of the holes a pin driven in at each end secured to the pipe so it would not blow over