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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Pole bean trellising

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  • From: Chrys Ostrander <chrys AT thefutureisorganic.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Pole bean trellising
  • Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:49:23 -0700

Here's my method:

I grow in 4 ft. wide no-till beds. Most of the time I have straw on them, but beans like very warm soil to germinate, so, I take the straw off for a while before sowing. I sow 7 rows of pole beans in rows 6" apart down the length of the bed. Next I replace my 4 drip lines and overhead water to get things started. When the beans are about an inch and a half tall, I sprinkle straw over them. After they emerge from the straw, I'll sprinkle some more on and repeat until I have about 4" of straw mulch.

Now, I've already made my trellis tubes out of 7 foot wide concrete reinforcing wire (remesh). I've fashioned the mesh into 18" diameter tubes that are 7' tall. The first tube is placed over a corner of the bed, carefully avoiding squashing young bean plants and a 5' piece of rebar is driven into the bed (watch out for those drip lines!). The rebar is lashed to a vertical wire of the remesh tube with baling twine. Now another tube is placed next to the first and lashed to the first and so on down the bed. More rebar supports are driven in about every three or four tubes. It's very strong and won't blow over.

You'll end up with a very intensively planted bed of pole beans. It's easy to pick 'em because of the 8" squares in the remesh you can reach through and you can reach in two feet from one side of the bed and two feet from the other. There are many vertical wires for the beans to climb.

Yes, the remesh is pricey, but you'll be able to use it year after year, so it's an investment. Your yields will be higher as well, helping pay it off faster.

Chrys

At 02:26 PM 3/26/2009, you wrote:
Does anyone have a pole bean trellis method that they're happy with?

For small plantings, I've used 5' tall concrete reinforcing wire clipped to 8' t-posts, spacing the t-posts every 8-10', then run twine across the top of the t-posts to give the vines an extra foot or two to climb up.  It's very stable, but a high-cost investment, moreso now with steel prices being so high.

For larger plantings, we use 6' t-posts to reinforce 8' tall 2"x2" posts, spacing the posts 8-10' apart, and use Hortonova netting between the posts.  The materials are cheaper... but we've had trouble with the posts falling over in September when the trellis is heavy with vines and there's a heavy windstorm... or the netting slipping off the posts and collapsing to the ground.  We're able to re-use the netting if we roll up the netting to sit around all winter, then strip the vines off in the spring once they're thoroughly dried.

Any ideas?

Ken Bezilla
Acorn Community Farm
central VA


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This message originated from or was forwarded by:
Chrys Ostrander
Chrysalis Farm @ Tolstoy
Organic Micro-permaculture
33495 Mill Canyon Rd.
Davenport, WA 99122
509-725-0610
chrys AT thefutureisorganic.net
http://www.thefutureisorganic.net

Please consider making a contribution towards my sustainable agriculture organizing work.
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"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc - "The organization of work" 1839
Karl Marx - "Critique of the Gotha Program" 1875

"The purpose of agriculture is not the production of food, but the perfection of human beings"
Masanobu Fukuoka (February 2, 1913 - August 16, 2008)  - "One Straw Revolution" 1978

"The community whose every member possesses the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil... will be alike independent of crowned-kings, money-kings, and land-kings...."
Abraham Lincoln: Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1859

"We will never have an organic future and a stable climate until we pull all the troops out of Iraq
and redirect our annual $650 billion military budget to greening the economy and guaranteeing
a sustainable environment and economic justice for everyone."
Ronnie Cummins, National Director, Organic Consumers Association
at the "Farms Not Arms" public forum and protest in Manhattan, September, 2007



Thank you.



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