Wanting to grow pole beans on a trellis in your garden, but just don’t know where to start. We’ve compiled all of our favorite tips for growing pole beans on a trellis to get you started.
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Why We Prefer Growing Pole Beans On A Trellis To Bush Beans
Pole beans are a great option for vertical gardening and are something we have in our garden every year. Pole beans take a little bit longer to start producing but last much longer than bush beans, which means you get a much bigger harvest for your investment.
How To Grow Pole Beans
How to grow pole beans begins on picking a variety to grow, some of our favorites include:
- Roma Beans (these come in a bush variety too)
- Cherokee Purple
- Dragon’s Tongue
Make sure what you plan to trellis your green beans on is in place before you seed them. One planting will usually last us all season. Plant 6-8 seeds every six inches apart.
How To Grow Pole Beans On Trellis
Pole beans absolutely will need something to climb up, otherwise, you are just going to have a mess. You can plant on either side of your arbor, but you don’t want to overcrowd your bean tunnel so make sure you aren’t planting on either side of each end of your garden (just one side of each end).
DIY Pole Bean Trellis
Our favorite way to grow pole beans on a trellis is this method of creating a bean tunnel. We’ve grown beans like this for years and always have the best success with them. The best part? These bean tunnels are super easy to build and can be used on the ground or with raised beds.
What you need to build a Pole Bean Trellis
- Cattle Panels
- Feild Stakes, pieces of wood, or even raised beds
- Zip ties, stakes, or staples
Step 1: Figure out where you are going to but your bean tunnel. Cattle panels are pretty flexible so they can be folded pretty close together. *note they do have their limit and you should make sure that the ends are sitting on the ground without folding under*
Step 2: From here you can do this a couple of ways that you can secure the bean tunnels:
- If you are building a bean tunnel for raised beds, fit the narrow end of one of the raised beds against the outside edge of your raised bed. Walk the otherwise in until it forms a hoop that looks a bit like a covered wagon. Secure the other end of the cattle panel against the outside edge of another raised bed.If you live in a place that gets lots of wind you can secure the cattle panel to the side of your raised bed with extra-large staples.
- If you are building them in a regular garden there are two ways you can build a bean tunnel to grow pole beans on a trellis. Option 1 is to bend the cattle panel into position, then drive two field stakes into the ground on either side of where you want your bean tunnel to be. Secure the cattle panel to the field stakes with zip ties and trim off the excess.
Option 2: Fold the cattle panels into the place you want your bean tunnel, on the outside of the panel hammer in a stake on either end of the panel.
Other Ways To Grow Pole Beans On A Trellis
Some other great ways to grow pole beans on a Trellis are:
- Bean Teepees
- Netting
- 3 Sisters Planting
- Pallets
- Bamboo poles or sticks
- string trellis
- arbors
Tips For Growing Pole Beans On A Trellis
- Make sure you don’t plant on either side of one end of your arbor, this will overcrowd your plants and could prevent proper air circulation.
- When your pole beans are just getting started you may need to help them begin to climb the trellis, to do this gently secure your plants to the arbor or weave them through the trellis bit by bit.
Should You Fertilize You Green Beans On A Trellis
Green beans are legumes, which means they can fix their own nitrogen supply, so fertilizer isn’t strictly necessary. This is one of the things when it comes to how to grow green beans (especially if you are growing bush beans) that are up to you.
Because pole beans produce so much they can benefit from side-dressing them with compost or manure about halfway through their growing season. I like to use a fish emulsion fertilizer lightly on my plants once every other week or every three weeks and I have seen good results with it.
How Often To Pick Pole Beans
Once your pole beans have filled in and begun producing you’ll need to pick beans every couple of days if not daily to keep on top of them.
And that is how you grow pole beans on a trellis if you have any more questions drop them in the comments and we will try to answer them.
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