Looking for thin green beans

Here's a photo of the harbour where I grew up in Penzance, Cornwall:

The link is to Newlyn Harbour

http://newlynharbour.co.uk/htmlpages/fleet.htm

Oh, that's just gorgeous, Marian! How could you leave it?

LiseP,
When do you start your Kentucky Wonders? I've had seeds for 3 seasons now, and haven't managed to get them going at the right time. And, what kind of trellising do you use for them? I've got tons of bamboo available, and could do simple teepees.

Thanks!

I'm not LiseP, but I have tried lots of different things for my pole beans. I used to do teepees but I've found that they climb string better, so now I use bamboo uprights and crosspieces, with metal stakes in between the bamboo uprights for stability so the wind doesn't take them down once they get heavy (ask me how I know to do this!) and then I run string up and down in a VW kind of pattern for the beans to use. The lower crosspiece is about two inches off the ground but they can bridge that gap easily. I would love to find an easier method, but once it's up it works really well. A ten or twelve foot row might have three bamboo uprights with two metal stakes between them.

GG -

Uh, G_G,
You got a picture? I'm a visual learner...Thanks! Rebar I can do. Just can't quite "see" it in my head.

This isn't the best photo but it's taken by the greenhouse, with the bean poles on the left of the brick path and the tomato tripods on the right. You can see that I used woven fencing, from Gardeners Supply, tied to the crossbars. There are two rows of beans there, and unfortunately you can't see any more than the bamboo uprights closest to the brick path and the crossbars, with the beans covering the fencing. Hopefully it will give you some idea though.

Hi Linda. My record-keeping is pretty sad, but I can narrow it down to the first 2 weeks of September. The website I use says to plant from Aug 13 - Sept 13, but we were out of town nearly the whole month of August, so I know I was on the tail end of that window. I found a note that says "fill in a few more beans" and that was written on 19 September, so I'm guessing the beans were peaking up and showing any bare spots in the bed by then.

Here's a pic of the trellis that I use -- Sorry the picture is cluttered, better pics are on a different computer. But -- bonus! -- you can see my hubby putting the first of 2 hoop houses in. (Both are done now, and the plants are under plastic for the winter).

But anyway, if you look just behind the hanging baskets on the deck, you can see the Kentucky Wonder beans climbing the wall -- Argh, LATTICE is the word I've been searching for, rather than trellis. Anyway, the beans are planted on the outside of the deck space in a small narrow garden bed.

As a note on the lattice, it only starts about waist high (from the top of the benches on up). For a while, I was stringing twine from the ground up to where the trellis started to give the beans something to climb on and it worked "okay" but not great. Next season I stapled a panel of wire fencing across that space and it has worked great. My beans froze recently so I pulled them all out and can take a pic of that. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the pic LiseP!

When you're ready to rent out your DH, lemme know!

That raised bed is made with 2x8s? Looks to be about 4x8? What did he paint it with? Regular old paint, or some outdoor type?

I could see incorporating your lattice into my design. Or go with the bamboo "lean to" like G_g shows in her pic. Thanks to you, too, Greenhouse_gal.

I have GOT to have one raised bed in place by Feb. 18th!!!

LOL, gymgirl, some days he would rent out for cheap, other days he's priceless. LOL

The raised bed is 4'x8' but they're 10" wide boards, and then set into the ground an inch or so.

The paint is Walmart cheap-o stuff. Deck paint of some sort. We weren't too bothered about it since the wood is pressure treated anyway, we just wanted things to roughly match the deck.

Garden_gal, that photo is beautiful! What a lovely yard, so full of goodies.

I think any of the lattice/bamboo/trellis stuff should work, but I do notice a couple of things. The beans want something to climb on from the very start (no good to have the first 'rung' a foot off the ground, they will struggle and wander). And, I think the skinnier the thing to climb on, the more surefooted they seem to climb. The beans will travel around and through the lattice, but if you give them a string or wire, they really like to corkscrew around it and I think it helps them climb all the better. My thoughts on it, anyway.

Thanks, LiseP! The whole area is an enclosed garden; you can't see any of the gates but one of them is at the end of the brick walk between the tomatoes and beans. The fence up to the gate is visible, shaded by a peach tree. The patio set is on a small brick square in front of the greenhouse, but all of that is in the garden too.

I have noticed the same thing; when I tried to grow beans up bamboo tripods they needed a lot of help twisting around them, and if I neglected them for more than a day or so I'd find them madly waving into the air, looking for something to grab. Twine or other fencing seems to work a lot better. As I said, my crosspieces start fairly close to the ground, and once the little plants reach them they're good to go.

Ok. I'm getting the bean picture. I think I know which direction to go in. Thanks, ya'll!

Linda I love the garden pic. Thanks!

The tomato tripods look like what I ended up with in my driveway.

Court built a teepee with some really tall bamboo poles. I tied it together and used it for my beans. I connected a horizontal beam of bamboo about a foot off the ground on all 3 sides. Then I attached string to the horizontal pieces and connected them at the top of the pole.

I started my beans too late in the season to get much growth, but they did love the strings! I used the purple trionfono pole beans. They were delish!

Going back to filet beans... I grew a filet bean for the first time this year - a purple one this year called Velour. True, it was much less productive and a little more finicky than Kentucky Wonder (even with a mild-for-the-desert summer that barely got into the 100*F range) - BUT - it was also the best tasting bean - both raw in the garden, steamed or stir-fried. The purple color was a good blanching indicator (turns green when cooked), but none of them made it to the freezer. I will plant again - just more of them. Will continue to plant Ky Wonder as the old stand by - but definitely going to move towards Velour or other filet beans as my main crop in the future.

kmom, in what way was the Velour finicky? I have some of those seeds.

The bushes were not as robust as ky wonder (my standard), with fewer leaves and fewer (though pretty) flowers. They did not like temps in the 90*F-100*F range and would get wilty looking in the afternoon while the ky wonder would still look good (they revived over night when the temps cooled). I had separate rows of velour and ky wonder and also a row with mixed bush beans, and the velour always looked "a little skimpy" compared to the ky wonder and yellow wax bean plants. Also, I missed a few waterings when I went on business travel, and some of the velours died (over 90*F during that time), while none of the ky wonder or yellow wax did. (Sorry, don't remember the yellow wax cultivar). Production was also noticeably less per plant. Germination was nearly 100 % (over 200 plants), though, and the TASTE and texture was wonderful and (to me) superior to both the ky wonder bush, ky wonder pole, yellow wax and royal burgundy (chipmunks or rabbits ate most of the the royal burgundy shortly after harvest began, so I can't comment how well the plants would have done). I will plant them again, just will plant more plants next time. Maybe I will plant them where they get partial shade.

Note: I garden in the high desert in NV, where the humidity is in the single digits and the dry winds blow most of the summer (gusts to 50 MPH are common). And while my sand now has some organic matter in it, a short 5 years ago it was pure sand. Our well water is salty (can't taste it, but lots of it according to the tests) and alkali (used to be an ocean bed up here). In "normal" garden soil with better water and better water retention, they may do better. None of my beans here do as well as they did when I gardened in GA or CA. In fact, nothing does as well here. OK, with water, the zukes did just fine ;-) Can't keep a good duke down, LOL.

Thanks for the details kmom. The trials and tribulations of gardening in brutal summers I well understand. :-)