I saw a teepee made by using a block of wood with a hole drilled partly through that sat on top of a piece of rebar. They had attached cord to the block and small stakes in the ground in a circle around the pole which formed a teepee shape. It might look a little weird until the beans start growing, but it just doesn't get much cheaper than that.

SoonerGM

Yes, I can visualize that tepee as you describe it. I might need to go with a tepee or two or three, though if it gets too complicated, I might as well just go get another cattle panel and have done with it. (I've really wanted an excuse to make an arch of one of them and let something climb up it!)

But cattle panels aren't cheap, and if I can do something with two tall stakes and string or tepees, I'll probably go that way this year.

The cheapest of all is arguably to put up bamboo poles, presuming you can find someone with bamboo who will let you have a few sticks.

The second cheapest is to get 2 - 8ft T-posts and 35 ft of #9 wire and a roll of sisal twine. You can buy all of it for about $25. Put the T-posts in the ground 15 ft apart and run a wire from the top of one post to the top of the other and another wire 6 inches above the ground. Pull the wires reasonably tight and then use the twine to make zigzags from one wire to the other. Leave the twine hanging very loose and the beans will do the rest. This setup can be used year after year, just put on new twine as needed.

There is a serious problem with the amount of space you are allocating for these lima beans. Lima's need a minimum of 12 inches between hills and preferably 18 inches. Crowding them reduces yield significantly.

DarJones

Concrete wire mesh works as well as cattle panels and might be more expensive for a roll, but you will get dozens of flat trellis, arches, or tomato cages out of it. Though it rusts, it lasts for years.

Dar

What spacing are you suggesting for these limas if I plant them in a double row? I can never translate spacing in a hill to row spacing. 12 to 18 inches for each seed if they should all germinate?

Put 2 seed in each hill and space the hills 18 inches apart. Space rows at least 36 inches apart. Lima's are rampant climbers and sprawl all over so if you have anything else within reaching distance, runners will cross over and keep on growing. I've had limas beside corn and before the season was over, the corn was a mass of runners. I just kept picking the beans and let them grow.

DarJones

Dar,

I am tempted to follow your suggestion of 8 ft. T-posts. How do you drive them? Do you stand on a step ladder? Do you attach something to the lower part of the post to hit on? Or what?

Jim

Jim, I made myself a t-post driver using a piece of galvanized pipe and an old lawn mower blade. It works terrific. Then I realized that I could drive the posts in but could not pull them out - they really get stuck when it is hot and dry - so I modified the driver head with a lever tip that snags the t-posts right out of the ground.

If you decide to use the posts for beans, I highly recommend stretching a string to plant them so they are in a straight row.

The maximum distance between posts is 20 ft, if you get further than that, the wires are too stretched and the beans don't get as much room to grow.

A row of beans 100 ft long using t-posts can develop several thousand pounds of pull in a strong wind. I highly recommend purchasing the trailer home anchors to put at each row end to tie off the wire. They cost about $10 each.

DarJones

Thanks, Dar. A lot of space, but I'll count on their filling out the trellis and producing well.

And daggone! The things you learn on the internet! Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.