I can't help, but I feel your pain! I normally don't plant any king of running bean. I got some black jungle butter beans from flinklapper this year. I wanted to try them so I put up a 5' high trellis for them. They have outgrown it by 2' so far. I'm just going to let them grow and see what happens!

I don't cut the tops, I let them flop over the top. All those leaves are collecting energy to make the beans. I'm sure that if I cut them, they'd either branch or make fewer beans.

Maybe make taller trellis. I knew one person with a 10 foot tall trellis, needed a ladder to pick from the top.

I make the trellis or poles as tall as I can reach. When the beans grow taller than that I let them flop. The result is a large mass of vines at the top, all within reach for picking. The trellis needs to be supported well enough to prevent being blown over by strong winds with that top-heavy load.

Jim

OK thanks. That is exactly what I do but some of the pictures I was looking at looked so much neater than mine.

I have made those teepee trellises of long branches, but I always fastened them together at the top. Then I passed a 'bean teepee" of what appeared to be 10-ft lengths of white PVC pipe, but tied together maybe 2/3 of the way from the ground, with the top third of each pole sticking out. The beans had grown up to the 'waist', and I am assuming they would then grow out the projections and hang down.

Another addition for my 'to-do' list.

Sue