Sean Straw wrote:
songbird wrote:

pictures last year from the roof: (the jungle
is the bean patch, it's looking much different
these days).

picture 10/13 ? Is the jungle you refer to in the low centre, or back
next to the tree line? If low centre, looks like you're growing bush
beans (but I lack any scale indicators - they could be 2' tall, or 4'
for all I know) -- try some pole varieties sometime if you want a real
"jungle" - and an abundance of fresh beans.

yes, 100_5774, is looking down from the roof
to the north. in the foreground to the right
the upside down birdbath is about 5ft tall.

and yes, there are different kinds of beans
in there. i was experimenting with most of
them as i'd not grown them before.

the largest clumps were soybeans. they took
over most of the space and were an excellent
cover crop. not too many weeds in those areas.
they made it close to 5ft tall. 4 different
patches (soybeans i had grown before -- i knew
they were going to get bigger. i'd planted
the right 2/3rds of the garden on or after Jun
20th).

for vining plants i had pinto, pink, red
beans and blackeye peas.

the rest of the bush beans were green, wax,
kidney (dark and light red), peas, lentils,
turtle, lima, cranberry. only the lentils
didn't do much (planted late, surrounded
and many weeks of very hot sunny weather,
i'm not sure which factors made the most
difference there).

this season i'll have a few dozen more
varieties. i'm looking forwards to fresh
pea pods once again.

the upper 1/3 is now birdsfoot trefoil,
garlic, strawberries, onions, turnips and
peas. to shade the strawberries for the
hot mid-summer and control the runners i
usually plant beans around them. this is
in addition to it having spring flowers
(crocus, tulips, daffodils, hyacynths)
and the iris and lillies. it's coming
along nicely.


I have a support structure I easily made out of 1/2" "EMT" (Electrical
Metal Conduit - the rigid tubing stuff). 10 foot lengths are
available at homecentres here for about US$2 apiece, and five ($10)
will make one 10' tall x 10' long support structure, ten makes two of
those (duh! g), and just ONE more tube, and a pair of unions allows
you to have an additional run in between, so 11 lengths of EMT, plus
two unions (about $24 all told), provides 30 feet of row support. I
make wooden "sandwiches" from some exterior ply and a few scraps of
lumber cut to 1/2" wide to make holders for the legs, with a hole
through the top for the horizontal support. Support sisal twine over
the horizontal, and the beans grow crazy with the space.

i'm trying to keep things simple here, but
thanks for the thoughts. most of what i
have this season for planting are going to be
bush type beans so not too many patches will
need taller supports. i'm going to be testing
okra along the northern edge.

always something interesting...


songbird