New bean tee-pee design help wanted

[Smiles Jr.]

It seems that each year I struggle with my pole bean supports. I have tried many different types over the years and many are not so good. I have used old dog run panels set up in "A" frame style for the past two years. I use nylon zip-ties at the top to hold the two panels together. They have worked OK but they are heavy and the vines get so thick in the chain link fencing that it takes lots of work to get them ready for winter storage. My 6 panels are very rusty these days and 2 of them are falling apart.

A few years ago I tried the old fashioned cable across the top at about 7 ft. with a chain hanging down at each bean plant. They worked but it requires too much work to set it up.

I think I would like to spend some time this winter to work out in the shop and build some new tri-pod or quad-pod tee pees that are easy to disassemble and assemble. I'm thinking of a top hoop (either triangle or square) made of 2"x2" pine or fir with three or four 8' long 2"x2" wooden legs that can be inserted into holes in the top hoop. I'm thinking that the hoop would be about 18" square or triangle and the legs would be 48" apart at the bottom. Also I could wrap bailing wire around the legs at 2', 4', and 6' off the ground.

Watcha think? Any suggestions? What do you guys use?

 

[baymule]

Smiles, I have horses and besides their valuable manure, I get hay twine!! I save hay twine, I always have a hank of it in every vehicle as it always comes in handy for something or another. But you asked about vines..........I use hay twine tied and netted between rebar stakes. At the end of the season, I just cut the hay twine loose, roll up the vines and twine and stuff into bags for the garbage man to pick up. Here is a link to my green bean garden.

http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=33860

 

[Smart Red]

My bean tripods are made of three eight foot 2 x 2's (treated) connected at the top by a bolt and wing-nut. The middle 'leg' is therefore moveable. The front two legs are connected by three 2x2's cross bars with the longest at the bottom and the shortest at the top. I connected the moveable leg with a piece of chain set to the proper distance for standing and attached to the middle of the middle cross bar.

With the wind and heavy production, I found that connecting two or more standing tripods with another board made them far more stable, although they worked well alone in a more sheltered spot.

My own design! And they must have looked pretty good since two of the first three I made walked off on their own.

The local Rotary Gardens built several square trellises for growing beans and squash. Basically four eight foot 2x2's with ladder-like cross bars that seemed to work rather well.

Love, Smart Red

 

[897tgigvib]

Whatever is funnest and handiest. Someone in here had some photos of just using fallen branches and twigs long enough. So I tried those, and they worked great. On some I used bailing wire, on others I used twine to hold them together and make more places for them to run up. Some places I ran the twine to the netting over the garden looped through several openings.

Main thing is to make the support the right height and strength for the variety. I also made a couple out of store bought 1x2 'furring stickers. A lot of work for not much better, but they look more pleasing to some of the visitors. Most thought the wild look of the branches and fallen sticks looked great.

Somewhere in here there was someone who used hog or cattle panels for some of those giant Limas, the galvanized kind probably. That looks like it'd work great too, probably staked in on the ends and middle, with 4 guy wires to pounded stakes would hold it up.

Main thing is beans climb best on rough surfaces, and they don't tend to climb something at less than a 45 degree angle too much. Steeper the better.

Whatever works
funnest
looks pleasing
doesn't fail
cheapest

In the forest here there are plenty of fallen branches and twigs.

 

[thistlebloom]

For my Sugar Snap peas, and pole beans I use a tripod made from 7 foot (or so ) tree stakes. I drilled a hole through all three at the top and wired them together. Then I use twine wrapped around or sometimes vertically for the plants to climb.
It was cheap ( I had a bunch of used stakes on hand ) easy and when the seasons done it's easy to store.

 

[Jared77]

Mine always lean and and I'm always tinkering with them with plants climbing high during the summer. Sometimes multiple times. I was using the green coated poles that are approx 6ft in length. Was securing them with a zip tie. Its a joke. They pull up out of the ground and I'm always resetting leaning tee pees. So I had a crazy thought, I'm going to get some galvanized pipe and spray paint it with the Krylon texture paint to give my beans a better purchase to climb, and hopefully this will last for a long time. Then Ill probably zip tie them or use bailing twine to hold the poles together.

Then I plan on putting in shorter rods or spikes and the poles to OVER the short rods to help hold them in place. When its season end Ill pull everything up and put them away for next year. We'll see how well this works.

 

[so lucky]

I used 1x2s 8" long and made tee-pees. I wasn't strong enough to get them pounded into the ground sufficiently, so at each west wind they leaned a little more. When my DH finally agreed to help secure them, it was late in the season. He trampled and uprooted so many vines in the process, they died off pretty quickly after that.
Next spring I think I will use the tall tomato stakes that are still standing, and seem to be much more securely in the ground. I will tie twine between them to make a sort of lattice. Hope that will work better.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I like Marshall's comment. Funnest and handiest.

Right now I use a garden fence. It is a pain breaking the dried bean vines out of it. I've done different things in the past.

Growing up, we'd often jab broken tree branches in the ground. Dead tree branches so they would not sprout. These were not just a clean pole. They had several limbs on them.

Sometimes we'd use tobacco sticks. These are sticks about 6' to 6-1/2' long and an inch or so in diameter. Jab or drive them in the ground then we'd tie bailing twine (we also had a lot of that) to the tops and run those out, sort of in a teepee arrangenent, but more of a two dimensional version lined up with the row.

Most years my parents just planted bush or half-runner beans and didn't worry about it.

I've built tripods out of tree limbs. Lash the tips of the limbs together to for a tripod set them at appropriate intervals, tie a long tree limb to the top to create a horizontal, then use twine string to run down to the plant. Occasionally wind would be a problem but I'd guy them to add support. Here our strong summer winds are always out of the south. It's not hard to guy them if you know wind direction.

I've actually built a fence in the garden. Set posts and run 2" x 4" welded wire between the posts.

Since you want to build something easy, I like Smart Red's idea of bolting three 2x2's together at one end to make a tripod. I think your hoop idea is too complicated. Keep it simple. I'd probably figure out how to attach another 8' long 2x2 to the top, buy a roll of twine, and run the twine down to the beans for them to climb on. That twine will decompose in your compost pile. At the end of the season put the twine and vines in there.

I haven't thought about it too much, but maybe bolt four 2x2's together on half of them and make the bolt long enough on the other to take a fourth. Then when you set them up, three legs become the tripod and the fourth goes across to become the horizontal. About half-way down the tripod you might need to tie the legs together to stabilize the tripod. That twine would do.

I think this would be easy to set up and take down, easy to clean off, and easy to store. I'm sure I'm missing something basic, but maybe think about it.