Supporting Broad Beans

[Farmer_Gyles]

first time growing broad beans ......
can't remember the variety, but they grow to 4ft high
they need to be planted 6" apart in a double row
how should i support them? the only info i've seen in my books for supporting them says to push a few canes in the ground and run string around the canes

so should it be one cane per plant? should the canes be tied together with another cane (as with canes for runners) or just run string round near the top or what???
HELP!!

[crichmond]

Cane on each corner of the row and string round the whole row.

[Farmer_Gyles]

cheers - but better be more specific
it'll be an 8ft long double row planted out kinda like this:
.x x x x x x
. x x x x x
from what i've read, the double row is 6" wide - plants spaced 6" apart within each row
so how far apart should i put the canes? and if all i'm doing is tying string round the canes, how high should i tie it?

[rustylady]

It's not support for individual plants, Farmergyles, just support for the whole row. A cane at each corner, and maybe two inbetween (total of eight canes). String run round each cane to make an outside frame. Suggest two or three rows of string, first one a foot above ground, and then a foot apart.

[Farmer_Gyles]

cheers guys, thats brilliant - hopefully will get them all planted out tonight

[JennieAtkinson]

I did an 8 foot row last year and did exactly as Rustlylady says. It worked perfectly.

[Vegetarian Fox]

Also, if your bean are getting too high - say above about 5 foot (can happen if warm and wet through spring) you should pinch out central growing shoot. Otherwise they become very unstable and a bit of wind can wreck havoc. I think this also helps produce earlier pods, although this may be hearsay (perhaps other grapes can confirm?)

Its probably a bit early to do this yet, but my autumn planted BBs are now getting on for 4 foot, and growing like mad, so will probably do this in a few weeks time

good luck - I think BBs are one of the best home grown veg and its worth succession planting to get a good spread over the summer

[Mike and Louise]

This year we sowed our beans in single rows... seeds 6" apart, rows 10" apart.
The rows are 4' long and we sowed 8 rows so we have a block of beans 4' x aprox 6'. 56 seeds in all.

We then put a cane on each corner of this block and ran string around the canes, so it forms a 'cage' around the plants. This stops them from falling outwards. They will support themselves inside the cage.