The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[Ridgerunner]

It's approaching Easter and some schools have had spring break. Some regular postal service employees with families take vacations so they are using subs. It's not surprising it gets slower.

I wonder if Vigna subterranean might be a good choice for warmer drier climates?

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Vigna subterranea should do fine in both wet and dry, warmer climates - although they don't like to be waterlogged, amend soil with sand if you think it's too wet. I've never grown them before, this is mostly based off of what I've read.

 

[the1honeycomb]

Honeycomb, I hadn't turned the page yet and seen your free choices when I made the above post. Oh well. Got em, and you'll have them soon.

Very exc7ted already have the black been from last year planted

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

My beans came!

What a gorgeous assortment, and a Russ Crow original in there, too! Thank you so much... I'm just going to go work in the garden a little now, to tide me over to planting time.

 

[897tgigvib]

Taking a short lunch break from planting Beans. I still have 27 more bush varieties to plant before repeating the process in the rest of the garden.

1st set:

3 of each bush variety.
3 of each African variety.
2 of each Lima variety.
2 of each pole variety.

After getting these last bush varieties planted, then in the beds I'm working on getting ready fast as this ole body can, I'll repeat the process, but with priority on the African varieties and the outcross varieties.

Is that the best prioritizing Russ? I'm spacing the plants with more room this year.

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

Sooo... time to gather a little information. I know this has been talked about a bit before, but how do each of you plant/raise your beans? For the pole beans, single pole or teepee? How many plants per pole? For the bush ones, what spacing?

I know that different techniques work for different people, but would love to get a sense of the most successful our group uses.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Marshall,

Sounds like your planting plan is just fine. Your prioritization has to be up to you according to your space and what you want to plant this year. Your spacing plan I'm sure is dictated by what you discovered about your planting last year. I had 24 inch row spacing last year for bush beans, but with the width of my roto-tiller I felt it was a bit tight, however it did work. I use a roto tiller to cultivate between the bean rows. My bean garden is more like a small farm field. This year I'm going I'm going to losen up my spacing of my rows to 30 inches apart for bush beans. Pole beans were single poles spaced at four feet between poles in the row and rows were five feet apart. This year single poles will be spaced a 3 feet in the row. The rows will be tightened up a bit to 4 feet six inches apart.

Naomi !

My bush bean seed is spaced at 7 inches in the row. Pole beans are planted around single poles made out of 1x2 inch pine furing stripes with a point cut on one end with a jigsaw so I can hammer the poles in the ground about 12 to 15 inches deep. The 1x2's are cut to about 80 inches. After I hammer them in ground they stick up out of the ground to about 6 feet tall. I plant 4 seeds around each pole. One seed north, south, east and west. Each variety planted gets two poles. Seems to work out real nice for me. The single poles reduces the wind load. A 65 mile an hour wind can blow and the air just mostly passes through my pole bean field without causing damage or blowing anything over. Got to to make sure you don't have weak spots in your pine stripes like cracks in the wood or a lot of knots that could weaken your poles. You can go take a look at the photos of my pole bean planting on last years thread (PAGE 10). "The Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Bean Varieties Nearly Free". That was photos of my 2012 bean garden.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Naomi,

You can also see my 2013 pole bean patch before the seeds started growing on last years thread on page 15. My pole bean rows in 2012 were spaced 3 feet apart. I thought that was a bit tight and the poles were 2 feet apart in the row. 2 feet apart in the row is not bad, but I just got to have enough space between the rows so my pole beans from each row don't grow over to each other and make harvesting of dry pods difficult so I don't get the seed of different varieties mixed up.

 

[897tgigvib]

Almost have the 39 foot long south bed's antigopher cage done. Should be able to seed it on Monday or Tuesday.

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This bed will get the final 17 bush varieties I have not yet planted, 3 seeds each.

It will also get another planting of the bush African varieties, 2 seeds each.

I will then plant 2 more seeds each of all the outcross varieties.

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After this bed, there is the middle bed in the main garden to prepare. That one should take about a week to prepare the antigopher cage and soil for. It will receive a second planting of the pole beans.

After that bed is planted, the back part of my garden has 2 beds that need complete rebuilding, and will take some time, and maybe one will be ready in 10 days. I've been using the soil out of the back beds to make the other beds deeper.

 

[journey11]

Hi Naomi!

I plant my bush beans in rows about 2 feet apart and spaced 8-10" in each row. If I have plenty of seed, I'll put 2 or 3 seeds to a hole and thin to one plant later.

I use teepees made out of bamboo for my pole beans, 8 poles shoved into the soil and tied together, and a 2-3 seeds (if I have plenty) at the base of each pole. Teepees are at 2-3 feet apart so the beans don't reach over and climb on their neighbors. My BIL has a bamboo forest he planted, so I can get all the poles I need there.

Bunnies and deer will go after my young plants, so I'm putting up electric around my garden this year. (They never really bothered me much until last year! Now I suppose that they've found me, they'll be back in force.) I'll put row covers or chicken wire cages around the plants until they get established. They won't bug them once they're fully grown and tougher.