I'm new to backyard farming, and trying to do it in a part of the world different from most of the rest of y'all (downtown Miami).... but I've found a couple types of beans and peas that claim to be hardy enough to produce in the summer in my South Florida back yard, so I'm wondering if y'all have advice.

Can I just grow them up my tomatoe cages? The tomatoes are done now, way too hot already. Will the tomato cages be stable enough?

And can they grow up the okra stalks? That seems like a neat idea, okra being one of the few other edibles that will grow here in the summer, but I feel like, if it would work, someone else would have already thought of it and been advising people like me to do it. So there's probably something about okra (maybe the little itchy hairs) that retards bean or pea growth?

I live in the city, so no one nearby knows how to grow things like black-eyed peas (which I've read can survive our summers, and which my southern self yearns for.)

Y'all got any ideas? If the tomato cages won't work, I probably don't have much time to work out something else to plant them against before it gets too hot to even bother planting them. I've got strings going up to the screws that we anchor the hurricane shutters to, in the hopes of growing beans up them. I've planted and we'll see. But there are only two viable windows for that idea. So I'm looking for more ways to grow some sort of summer food (winter is our veggie season.)

And sorry to introduce such amateur questions into the mix. I wandered over from the Florida gardenweb, where they're used to amateurs like me asking silly questions. Y'all seem pretty good at this so I'm hoping you'll suffer my foolishness.

It's times like this that I miss my grandmother and her farming advice.

I have used large tomato cages to support beans. They work well, though I usually support the cage with either a pole or a T-post. If the cage get's blown over it can yank up the beans on one side. But cages have worked well for me in the past.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Thanks for the response. Moisture won't be a problem _ in my experience, our rainy season tends to overwater just about everything. I've got limited space, so I may try to okra idea anyway, to try to get a little variety in my little garden.

And I'm definitely going to try to tomato cages. I might try to brace them somehow, as you suggest.

Thanks.

s

My cages are 5' tall and made of concrete reinforcing wire.

George

I'm agreeing with MacMex's guess on the competitiveness of live okra as a support. Okra roots spread out at least 2 feet in every direction (plus a tap root over 18 inches long), and they get every last bit of moisture and nutrients in their reach.

greentongue... Arkansas Ozarks