Supporting Green Beans: Wigwams, Trellises and Bush Bean Staking

Put the support up before you sow

Driving canes into a bed where beans are already germinating spears the roots and knocks the seedlings about, and a pole bean that runs along the ground for a week before it finds something to climb is a bean that will trail and tangle all season. Build the structure first, then sow one station at the foot of each upright.

This also lets you build properly. A support that goes in before the plants can be pushed hard into firm ground, braced and tied at the top with both hands free. Once the row is full of seedlings you will be working around them and the job gets done badly.

A pole bean carrying a full crop in midsummer is a solid wall of leaf. Wind loads it like a sail, so build for wind rather than for weight.

Choosing between a wigwam and a row

A wigwam of six to eight canes tied at the top is the most stable structure for its cost and needs no separate bracing, which makes it right for exposed gardens and for a bed too small for a row. Its drawback is that pods hang into the middle where you cannot reach them, so you tend to miss pods and they go stringy.

A double row with the canes crossed near the top and a horizontal cane laid in the crotch is easier to pick from, because every pod hangs on the outside of a wall you can walk along. It needs a strong stake driven in at each end to stop the whole run racking sideways in wind. For more than about ten plants a row is worth the extra work.

Building it so it stays up

Most collapses are foundation failures, not breakages. Canes pushed four inches into soft soil pull out when the plant above is loaded and the ground is wet from a storm. Drive uprights at least eight inches (20 cm) in, and on a row put a stout stake at each end angled outwards to take the pull.

Tie the top junction with soft twine wrapped several times in a figure of eight and finished tight. Wire cuts into canes and plastic clips fail in ultraviolet light by midsummer. Check the ties once, six weeks in, and retighten anything that has worked loose.

1. Mark the footprint first For a wigwam, scratch a circle about 3 ft (90 cm) across and space the canes evenly around it. For a row, run a line so both sides are straight and opposite each other.
2. Drive, do not push Get 8 inches (20 cm) of every upright into the ground, angled slightly inwards on a wigwam so the tops meet naturally. In loose sand go a foot (30 cm) down.
3. Bind the crown Gather the tops and wrap soft twine round the bundle six or seven times, crossing between canes, then tie off. A loose crown lets the whole thing rack in wind.
4. Brace the ends of a row Drive one stake at each end of the run leaning away from the row, and tie the top horizontal cane to it. This stops the row folding over like a deck of cards.

Getting pole beans to start climbing

Pole beans twine anticlockwise seen from above and they find their support by circling the growing tip. A young plant sometimes circles and misses, then runs off sideways. Guide the first shoot onto its cane by hand and wind it a full turn and a half around, loosely, and it will carry on by itself from there.

Never tie a bean tightly to its support. The stem thickens and the twine will strangle it. If you must secure a shoot, use a loose loop of soft twine in a figure of eight, and once the plant has taken hold you can leave it alone entirely.

When the leader reaches the top, pinch it out. That stops the plant piling all its growth into a tangled mass above head height where you cannot pick, and pushes it into side shoots and flowers lower down.

1. Guide the first shoot When the plant is about 8 inches (20 cm) tall, wrap the tip anticlockwise around the cane once and a half. Check again in two days that it has held.
2. Redirect strays weekly Shoots that jump onto a neighboring plant make picking miserable. Unwind them and put them back on their own cane while they are still soft.
3. Pinch the tip at the top Once the leader reaches the top of the cane, pinch out the growing point. Flowering and pod set improve noticeably within a fortnight.

Bush beans need support too, just less of it

Bush beans are sold as needing no support, and that is true right up until the plants are carrying a full crop and a storm arrives. A loaded bush bean flops sideways, the pods end up on the soil, and within days they are curved, dirty and being eaten by slugs. The pods that touch the ground are effectively lost.

The cheap fix is a short stake at each end of the row and one halfway along, with string run down both sides at about 10 inches (25 cm) high. The plants lean against the string instead of the soil. Add a second string at 18 inches (45 cm) if your row is exposed, and earth up the stems by an inch (2.5 cm) when you thin so they root deeper.

Log the date your supports went up and whether anything shifted in a storm. After one season you will know whether your site needs the extra brace, and that note saves you a collapsed row of beans in year two.