Growing beans on a trellis is the most productive and visually attractive way to grow green beans in your backyard garden.
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Green beans are one of our favorite garden veggies. We eat them fresh quite a lot and we also freeze as many as we can for winter. We have found that the most productive way to grow them is growing beans on a trellis using pole varieties
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This weeks 5 Minute Friday video is a quick look at this year’s bean trellis and the video explains why growing beans on a trellis is the best way to do it. Please go check out the video here:
Growing beans on a Trellis – Video Demo
Here’s a shot of our bean trellis this year. It is loaded with vines and they are really producing well. Growing Beans on a trellis is much more productive for the same amount of space. Our trellis this year is 10 feet long. Its total footprint in the garden is only about 1 foot wide by 10 foot long. But it produces much more in that same amount of space as bush varieties would.
Now don’t get me wrong. Bush bean varieties have their place, and I grow some almost every year. Bush beans are great for filling in empty spots in your garden and are perfect for late-season plantings as they mature in only about 60 days.
But pole beans grown on a trellis produce many times the number of beans in the same space. Pole Beans do take a little longer to mature (more like 75 to 80 days) but once they start producing they will outshine bush beans!
Our Bean Trellis Set up
Our bean trellis is a simple setup. I just ripped some 2 x 4’s in half on my table saw. Then I pound 3 of these boards 2 feet deep into the ground. Then I run another board across the top.
Once the structure is in place we added a few eye hooks
on all sides and then ran Garden Twine
between the hooks creating a grid pattern.
As your beans plants begin to put out vine runners you simply train them to climb the Garden Twine. Once you get them started going in the right direction they pretty much take care of themselves. Keep in mind if you live in a windy area that your trellis will get top heavy as the season progresses. It’s not a bad idea to add some steel fence posts next to a couple of your posts to reinforce them against the wind.
Growing Beans on a trellis is our go-to option for our backyard garden. This season try your own simple trellis and you will have your best crop of green beans ever!!
Using Bird Netting to protect your crops from birds
I grew long-vine peas on a trellis this year. I used 4 green steel fence t-posts and strung deer netting on them down the row, which was about 16-20 feet. It was very sturdy and the peas grew up it and beyond quite well. I think beans would also grow up this well, but I make teepees for my pole beans and plant my winter squash between the teepees.
Our first bean trellis was something similar. We build a 2 x 4 frame in a long wedge shape with bird netting on it. It did really well. The only reason I switched was that its “footprint” was bigger than I really wanted, taking up too much ground.
For the peas, I did two rows about 3 inches apart on either side of the trellis. I also planted some half-runner beans like this (but 6 inches between rows on either side of the trellis.) With the double rows on each side, my peas took up about 2ft across, and my beans about 3ft across.
i do my beans on an arbor. I use the welded cattle panels (4 ft by 16 ft fastened to the 6 ft tee post using 3 or 4 panels per row and 2 rows wide , then I use concrete reinforcing wire to form the top across the space between the 2 rows forming the arch. the pole beans are planted on both rows and will completely cover the arch.when you pick beans you are picking most of them in the shade.