After the miserable nasty weather we started spring with, some of my garden is coming on, finally. My Fortex pole beans survived two bouts of hail and strong downpours and wind. It is probably good that they hadn't started vining yet. Now they are climbing the strings, but the heavy rain did wash away some of the hill I planted them in. The weeds are also starting up, so I was thinking of hilling them up with some good loose compost to cover the weeds. I have routinely pulled the loose dirt from hoeing along my bush beans up around the plants, but I was wondering how far I could go with that for pole beans. Do they like or dislike having their lower stems covered, and how far up?

Chuck