- Hello and a very warm welcome back to the garden.
It's a stunning day here, in early June.
And this video is about all of the crops that you can
interplant with climbing beans so you can
increase the productivity of your growing space.
Now interplanting is basically where you have
a staple crop and then you look at what other crops
complement the growing so you can fit it around.
Here, I've got onions.
They're quite a tall, narrow growing plant
so I've interplanted radish just to make the most
of the lower down space.
So you can see intercropping or interplanting
as a jigsaw puzzle, but it's just a lot more fun.
Last year I was transplanting some runner beans
around a wigwam and I was looking at the space and I thought
hold on a minute, there's a gap between each plant.
And if you think about climbing beans,
they're actually quite narrow and they grow tall
and that's their characteristic.
And I thought well I'm sure I can fit something
in between the plants around the wigwam
or the archway or the A-frame.
And I thought let's give it a go with parsley
and I had absolutely fantastic results.
So if you have a small space and you're trying
to fit as much food in as possible, then this video's
really gonna help you utilize intercropping
and interplanting with your climbing beans.
The great thing about interplanting with climbing beans
is that you actually have a lot of choice
with what crops you want to grow.
And you can also mix and match them so you can create
a nice variety working around your wigwams or A-frames.
And the key kind of plant categories are salads,
edible flowers, herbs, and also another legume.
The first crop we'll look at are herbs,
and more specifically, these are going to be annual herbs.
Now I already mentioned earlier in this video
about how well parsley works when planted
in between your climbing beans.
These are runner beans here, they're starting
to work their way up this wigwam.
And there are two other herbs that work really well
when interplanting, one of them being coriander
and the other one, which I've got here, is dill.
Now with dill, you just want to make sure that
you actually harvest these quite heavily
because they can grow tall, but they're
also quite a spreading plant.
So what I do is actually sow a load of seeds
in a module and treat them a little bit more
of a micro-herb because if you let them go,
they can go really big.
So I'm just gonna plant those in there.
Now the great thing about climbing beans is
another characteristic that they have
about being so tall is that they can actually cast shade.
And what that means is that you can use this
to your advantage when it comes to reducing
the chance of plants bolting.
So one thing that coriander tends to do
in a lot of hot, dry weather is run to seed.
So what you can do is on kind of the north-facing side,
so on this side of this wigwam would be the perfect place
to plant coriander because for the majority of the day
the climbing beans are gonna be casting shade
onto the coriander which is going
to prevent it from bolting so you're going to get
a better harvest as a result of that.
Now just a quick tip for whenever you're
growing coriander in your garden.
It will inevitably run to seed.
So one of the best things that you can do is say,
every three to four weeks, sow a new batch of seeds
so you've got a constant production line
of seedlings coming in.
So even if they do go to seed which isn't a bad thing
'cause you get green coriander seeds
and then you can dry them, as well,
but it also means you're always going to get
consistent harvests of coriander leaves.
This next example is showcasing peas, but the exact same
principles can be applied to climbing beans.
So they grow tall, so you've gotta think about what crops
aren't really going to compete with the height,
but instead make the most of the space around the base.
Because with peas and climbing beans, they send
all the energy upwards and this is where most
of the leaf is, so it can be a little bit sparse.
And this is a great opportunity to grow some edible flowers.
I've got calendula here, pot marigold, which grows amazingly
and I could grow these closer to climbing beans.
But what I want to draw your attention to is nasturtiums.
These are a fantastic edible flower
and they just look fantastic, as well.
They're great for pollinators.
But the most important thing about nasturtiums is
they act as a living green cover crop or a living mulch.
Because for runner beans in particular, when they're
flowering, they need as much moisture as possible.
Because a lack of moisture for runner beans
whilst they're flowering means the pods aren't going to set,
and you want those pods to set.
So by growing nasturtiums around the base
of your climbing beans and your runner beans,
you're going to reduce evaporation from the soil
and increase the chances for those bean pods to set
so you can have a better harvest.
We've just made another wigwam here, in the corner.
This is kind of the sun trap, so it's ideal
growing conditions for climbing beans.
And there's another crop that you can interplant
with runner beans and it works really, really well,
and those are salads.
So things like radish, spinach, lettuce,
and also rocket work really well,
especially in the shadier part.
You can see here, the shadow that is
already being cast by this bamboo.
Now just imagine that nice shadow
if this is filled with plants.
It makes ideal conditions for growing salads.
I'm just putting in a bit of compost
and I've got some runner beans, here.
Can never grow too much runner beans.
And with salads, it's really important
instead of like with herbs where you can plant them
in between, to actually plant them a little bit away.
So when I put this runner bean in here,
this is going to start to grow up this bit of bamboo.
And I'll put another one here, and then with any salad
like lettuce or radish or something, I'll plant it here,
rather than in between.
The reason why is it allows it some more space to develop.
So if you're after say, a heading lettuce, if you put it
in the middle there, there's not gonna be
enough space, and also for radish.
So that means instead of seeing it as like
strictly interplanting, what it is
is you're kind of foot-planting.
So you can imagine that this is kind of at the foot
of where the plant is growing.
And so if you opt for salads, try and make the most of it.
If this is going to be casting shade and you've got this
on the other side of the bed, just fill this whole section.
Wherever the shadow's gonna be, fill it
with as many salads as possible and it's gonna make
a really useful and productive way.
Because if you think about it, salad leaves
such as lettuce, if you use cut and come again,
those are one of the most productive things that
you can grow in a small space 'cause you can get
continuous harvest for many weeks.
And it's just one of many ways of making your growing space
get more food for you to take down into the kitchen.
Here, I've got some beans ready
to start climbing up this hazel arch.
Now the trouble with wigwams is that
they utilize raised bed space.
So if you maybe look at doing something like an archway
like this, you've got minimum space taken up by your wigwam
which means you can grow more crops.
And what I'm going to do is I'm gonna interplant
another kind of legume, here.
I've got these beautiful dwarf French beans.
Actually, also hiding here, I've got a calendula
which is another thing you can interplant
with your runner beans.
And I'm just going to go in and start planting these.
Now the great thing about dwarf French beans
is that they're dwarf.
So because they don't grow very tall it means that
they don't really compete with the runner beans.
And because they like to kind of grow kind of outwards
towards the light, they can kind of bend over
and you can start harvesting a load of pods.
And it's just a really wonderful way,
especially if you're following things like crop rotation
and you want to have just a legume bed,
then the best thing to grow close up
or alongside your climbing beans are going to be
all of your dwarf French beans.
This next tip isn't related to interplanting
but it's a way of actually being able
to potentially increase the production
of your climbing beans by utilizing water storage.
I've got a five IBC tank system here,
storing 5,000 liters of water.
I've got a video just here so you can found out
in more details how to create a really low-cost
water storage system for your garden.
And last year in the main garden, I had another IBC tank
and I thought there's a trellis system, here.
What if I grew some runner beans
at the base and see what happens.
And I had some runner beans left over
from the main planting and I planted them
later than the main ones, and they ended up podding for me
and me being able to harvest them earlier than the main ones
because of this heat sink that water acts as.
So during, during the night, these runner beans,
they don't really like cold temperatures at night.
And the water can raise the temperature a fraction,
maybe just a couple of degrees more than say,
runner beans on an A-frame, and that contributes
to a really fantastic yield.
So that's something that you can try out.
If you've got any kind of water storage
it's a great opportunity to train your runner beans
to grow up and around them and enjoy some fantastic harvests
and you're utilizing some extra space
to fit in some more food.
So there you have the best crops that are most suited
for interplanting with climbing beans.
And I'm thinking of turning this into a bit
of a series of focusing on a few crops
and what they're best interplanted with.
And if that sounds like something of interest,
please do let me know down, below in the comments.
And I look forward to seeing you guys again, soon.