2026 Little Easy Bean Network – Plant A Garden, Water Your Soul, Join Our Family

[Rillowen]

Gosh I think I can start my bean trays before I leave for a trip on Friday, and theyll be read for planting out around the 25th. Crack the champagne ladies and gentlemen! So excited.

Has anyone here done the weave trellis method for their pole beens? Johnnys recommends it, and does it for their pole beans, and I’m considering it. As opposed to erecting gigantic makeshift fences and cattle panels that will ultimately never be tall enough I love the *look* of a woven stick fence, but the *work* to make them is not my favorite.

I thought about it, havnt done it yet though. This last winter i gathered large amounts if 9ft+ branches that were at least 2 inch at the bottom and made massive bean teepees. They are 5 ft diameter, and about 7 ft tall (not counting the angle) I burried the bottom 5inches or so at a slant and left some branches on the tops to interlock, then tied it with plastic garden string/baling twine. I used twine to wrap around (wrapping around each pole when I got there) to make horizontal climbing steps. It looks awesome, so far my pea loves it. Lol

 

[Heliena]

I might do this with the beans that arent in the main rows of the garden, it'd be too wide to try in my rows but that does sound awesome lol

My bonus mom planted a scarlet runner at the base of her flag pole last year, and that vine almost certainly reached the top before the end of the season. I want to say the pole was 12-15ft tall. Crazy.

 

[Rillowen]

I might do this with the beans that arent in the main rows of the garden, it'd be too wide to try in my rows but that does sound awesome lol

My bonus mom planted a scarlet runner at the base of her flag pole last year, and that vine almost certainly reached the top before the end of the season. I want to say the pole was 12-15ft tall. Crazy.

As a bonus my kids are looking forward to hiding in there and snacking on beans this year

 

[heirloomgal]

I thought about it, havnt done it yet though. This last winter i gathered large amounts if 9ft+ branches that were at least 2 inch at the bottom and made massive bean teepees. They are 5 ft diameter, and about 7 ft tall (not counting the angle) I burried the bottom 5inches or so at a slant and left some branches on the tops to interlock, then tied it with plastic garden string/baling twine. I used twine to wrap around (wrapping around each pole when I got there) to make horizontal climbing steps. It looks awesome, so far my pea loves it. Lol

After some experimentation, I feel like the most productive and also easiest, least laborious way to grow pole beans is up single vertical poles. I tried @Blue-Jay 's method but using little saplings instead of lumber. I drive them in 2 feet and they're good to go. I've never had one fall over yet, though I've had them break if I used a sapling that wasn't fresh. I love that air can move so easily between all the plants.

 

[Oxford]

Peas should be fine with a few degrees of frost. I sow peas in February and they get planted put in early March. They happily survive four or five centigrade degrees of frost without protection. I do plant each group of plants with a cut off water or milk bottle round it to protect against wind and pigeons,

but once they grow out of the top of the bottles, they fend for themselves.

First photo was taken 24 February, the second in mid-April.

I have so-called "winter sugar peas" in my garden. You sow them in October/November so that they spend the winter as plants about 5–10 cm/ 2-4 inches tall. You have to protect the plants from the weight of the snow, but they handle frost just fine. I have no idea how low the temperature can go, but they are also grown a lot in the Swiss Alps. And I don’t know if they would survive your winters, too. In spring/summer, they are ready about a month earlier than those sown in the spring.

 

[Oxford]

It actually snowed here the morning before yesterday, and there was still frost yesterday morning. All right on schedule for the so-called “Ice Saints” here in Europe - four Catholic saints whose name days fall between May 11 and 15 - and when, according to old traditions, the last frost should arrive. After, you can start sowing seeds in the garden. Of course, from a meteorological and statistical standpoint, that’s not true - except this year

My plants, however, are safe in the heated greenhouse. Not all of them are beans, but I have sown about 750 seeds from around 50 pole bean varieties. All but three varieties have germinated.

I pre-germinate very old seeds with low germination rates in jars so that I can separate the few that do (hopefully) sprout.
(The pumpkins, originally from the Azores, are already quite large and would be ready to be plant out)

 

[heirloomgal]

It actually snowed here the morning before yesterday, and there was still frost yesterday morning. All right on schedule for the so-called “Ice Saints” here in Europe - four Catholic saints whose name days fall between May 11 and 15 - and when, according to old traditions, the last frost should arrive. After, you can start sowing seeds in the garden. Of course, from a meteorological and statistical standpoint, that’s not true - except this year

My plants, however, are safe in the heated greenhouse. Not all of them are beans, but I have sown about 750 seeds from around 50 pole bean varieties. All but three varieties have germinated.

I pre-germinate very old seeds with low germination rates in jars so that I can separate the few that do (hopefully) sprout.
(The pumpkins, originally from the Azores, are already quite large and would be ready to be plant out)
View attachment 81145

View attachment 81146

That is so neat about the 'Ice Saints'!

 

[Decoy1]

I have so-called "winter sugar peas" in my garden. You sow them in October/November so that they spend the winter as plants about 5–10 cm/ 2-4 inches tall. You have to protect the plants from the weight of the snow, but they handle frost just fine. I have no idea how low the temperature can go, but they are also grown a lot in the Swiss Alps. And I don’t know if they would survive your winters, too. In spring/summer, they are ready about a month earlier than those sown in the spring.

I used to try overwintering peas for an early crop, usually in the polytunnel for a little protection. But rodents were just so voraciously hungry in the depths of the winter that whatever I did to try to make them rodent proof, they always succeeded in the end.

 

[Decoy1]

After some experimentation, I feel like the most productive and also easiest, least laborious way to grow pole beans is up single vertical poles. I tried @Blue-Jay 's method but using little saplings instead of lumber. I drive them in 2 feet and they're good to go. I've never had one fall over yet, though I've had them break if I used a sapling that wasn't fresh. I love that air can move so easily between all the plants.

I’m interested to know how you drive saplings into the ground, as presumably they don’t have a thick, sturdy top to whack with a sledgehammer?

 

[Rillowen]

I have so-called "winter sugar peas" in my garden. You sow them in October/November so that they spend the winter as plants about 5–10 cm/ 2-4 inches tall. You have to protect the plants from the weight of the snow, but they handle frost just fine. I have no idea how low the temperature can go, but they are also grown a lot in the Swiss Alps. And I don’t know if they would survive your winters, too. In spring/summer, they are ready about a month earlier than those sown in the spring.

I tried planting those last fall, I was so excited! I put them under a low tunnel. They did fine at first, but then the volesndecided to eat most of them. The last 2 were taken out when we had that drop from a week of 80s to -20 in 12 hours. Most of my winter plants have the same story, voles then that drop. I was so sad. I could have mulched extra ect (not sure it would have helped) but the weather was predicted to be 50!