Hello, I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm and today I want to talk about bean supports.
When we move to this site three years ago I had just no idea how windy it would be here.
And the first year I I grew runner beans at the back there and they got
pretty blown around, but the support stayed standing, but I didn't grow many beans.
And the second year as I grew them in a bed there.
And the middle of June, when we got the winds that we always get in June,
they got flattened.
And then last year I built a much sturdier support on this
bed here. I I used an awful lot of canes, I used a lot of hazel poles and I made it
really sturdy.
And the other thing that I've managed to get done
to put in the framework for the runner beans and I've been asked to show
you how I do this, so I know you've seen it a couple of times before completed but
I thought I'd show you how, just how, I do that.
So I put a triangle, a tripod of
supports in at each corner. But these ones actually cross over at the front so
you've got quite a steady support in each corner, but it can't be too rigid.
Because of the amount of wind we get here, it's got to have some room to maneuver.
So I do that's at each corner. And then at the center I do another two tripod,s but
I do them slightly, slightly offset so they're not opposite each other.
They're slightly offset so that the center canes take up about a third of the
length of the bed. And then I get two long canes and put them together
overlapping, tie around the center bit so I've got
one very very long cane and put it across the top and tie it to each of
these support tripods at the center's and at the end.
And then for this set, because I know we've got a particularly windy site and
they this will just collapse in the wind blowing that way, I've put in
some extra supports. So these poles have got a little Y at the top of them and
I've fixed them in here and this one I fixed in here, so that when the wind
blows it pushes against these and these effectively are load-bearing canes
and they go down to the ground right next to the fence so they're butting up
against the fence. So as everything gets pushed this way the fence will stop it
falling over, I hope!
So now I've effectively got two horizontal
supports way up there and the next thing to do is to put the canes from the
ground up to these supports.
Predominantly our wind comes from the
west, but there's a point in June where it comes from the south
and again southwesterly winds and they knocked my beans over and I really felt
quite despondent last year and I said this year I was going to make a much
sturdier, more permanent support for them.
And here it is! Mr. J has put in six
chestnut fence poles into the ground. This is pretty solid and then I have fixed
pieces of pallets onto the poles at this height. And they're at this height
because they're level with the top here. I know they're not level at the ends, but
that's fine. This is basically as high as it could go.
When I'm growing beans I
don't put my poles into a triangle like that, I cross them over so that the cross
is quite low down. and then,here's a cane, and then
the plants I can climb up and the green bean pods hang down closest to the path
so I'm not having to hunt too much in between canes to find them.
But that means that they need supporting on the outside and previously what I've done is
I've made the same shape as this but out of bamboo canes and fix them high up.
So this year the canes will go into the ground over on that side, but rest on
this side and then I'll use some baling twine to fix it into place and the beans
will all hopefully hang over the path.
Now I use eight-foot canes here, so there
is very little chance of anyone getting damaged on the top of these.
I really think that this is going to be strong enough, there's a little bit of give in it,
which there needs to be because if something's really solid the winds just
going to rip it out to the ground. But I think that that's going to be just about
perfect for our runner beans.
And now, you might have heard me say that I grew my
beans in here last year.
Before you leave a comment about crop rotation let me
explain what I'm doing with beans here. I am experimenting and seeing whether I
can get the same runner bean plants to come back up a year or two or
maybe more in a row. So in the autumn when I cut the beans down
I didn't lift them, I didn't pull plants out, I cut them and left about five or
six inches of stem and then I'm mulched all over them and that mulch has sat on
there all winter, growing a fairly hefty crop of weeds on it but they should come
off fairly easily. And my hope is that this year the same plants that grew last
year will reappea.r.
Now there's still plenty of time, there's no sign of them
appearing as yet and I wouldn't really expect
see them until the beginning of June. And if they haven't grown by the second week in
June, I shall plant some more seeds and get those in because there will still be
plenty of time to get a really good crop of beans this year.
So over the next
few days I'm going to clear all the weeds in this bed and give it another
mulch and get the bean canes in and fastened to the frame and then I'm going to
keep my fingers crossed that those little shoots from last year's beans reappear!