The Bean Teepee- Edible Cubby!

Dig in a large stick.

Found this great idea in Millie Ross's book, The Thrifty Gardener:

A Bean Teepee Cubby!

The idea is to grow your beans in a teepee shape.

This gives your beans something to climb up and your kids somewhere to play whilst you're working in the garden.

First, mark out a 2x2m square space.

Find a large stick- have a look at your local park for one that has fallen from a tree and trim off all the smaller branches with a pruning saw.

Dig a 50cm deep hole to bury it in so it is nice and solid.

Dig a circular mound about 1 metre out from the stick all the way around, working in some compost.

Form a mound about 1 metre out from the stick in a circle.

Form a Teepee shape with the strings.

Tie a doubled-over length of string around a brick and put it on the ground outside the mound- Millie suggests plastic string as jute string can rot under the bricks, but we only had cotton string so we'll have to take our chances! You can use tent pegs of you don't have bricks.

Continue this around the stick to form a teepee frame, leaving about 40-50cm between each string and leaving a space for a doorway.

Soak the beans in water overnight. We used 2 different types for some variety and a longer growing season- 'Dutchdry pole beans' from The Briars' collection of heritage seeds, and an interesting one from the Digger's club called 'Sex Without Strings'.

Dutch Dry Pole Beans

Plant 2 or 3 beans at the base of each string and water in, but don't water again after that until you see a sprout.

Sex Without Strings from the Diggers' heritage collection.

The little plants might need a bit of help to find the string, so you might need to use a twig to prop them up a little and guide them onto the string but after that they should climb up the string all by themselves.

Once you have a healthy 10cm plant, pull out the smallest ones and just leave the one strongest looking plant at the bottom of each string.

For a bit of extra fun, I planted some Marigold 'Red Marietta' seeds in the gap between each string.

This means there should be pretty little red and yellow flowers around the base of the cubby too.

I'm not sure when we'll have a cubby covered in beans but the packet says 9 weeks til harvest.

I'll post again with pictures when we do!