Stay, stay!!! What a fabulous looking garden. What are your teepee's made from? I planted potatoes two seasons ago using the straw method and it was working fabulously until the potato bugs took them over. I'm going to try them again this next season and have my Sevin ready if need be. What varieties of potatoes have you tried?

Oh...and is that a green house in the background? Is it a pop up type or some other? It's a little hard to tell in this picture. How do you like the one you have?

MeMo

Thanks you MeMo. Last year I grew Pontiacs, Kennebecs, Yukon Gold and Cobblers. This year I am only growing Yukon Gold. We love them! They are so much better than the ones in the store. I just plant mine the traditional way in trenches about 6 inches deep; then furrow row up over them to a depth of 12 inches. I, for some reason, had no potatoe bugs last year. I have had them in the past.

Alas, that is the remnants of my home-made pvc pipe hoophouse that lasted 3 years......until the edge of a tornado took it up off its corner and damaged it beyond repair. I just took off the pvc, bent three cattle panels into an arch, much narrower than the pvc one, covered it with my old green house plastic and limped along last year with it. I just use it when I move plants from the inside lights to the outside around March. This year I am going to move the frame to the garden and use it for either pole beans or cucs.

The bean teepees are bamboo. I bought a bundle from Gardeners Supply several years ago and am still working on them. They ususally last several years for me. I may also try some pole beans on my corn this year like the pioneers did.

Glenda

Glenda, I used bamboo stakes for my pole beans last year too. I didn't have much success with them though. First of all they weren't tall enough and the beans began to reach out and grab everything else in the garden. I took additional bamboo stakes and connected them from one teepee to the next to give them more vining room. Then they grew so massively that the weight of them actually toppled the teepees over. All in all I did get a bumper crop of beans though and we still have plenty in the freezer. Next year I will can them since I have a better handle on canning now.

I've been thinking that I can make a hoop house to fit over one or two of the raised beds I'm building this year using rebar and PVC. I have seen on a few of the greenhouse websites that you can buy just the heavier plastic from them so that is likely what I'll do. I'd like to try some winter sowing under a hoop house and see how that goes.

As for potatoes we just cut up regular potatoes and planted the eyes the first time we tried them. We dug trenches about 12 inches deep with the tractor, layed in the eyes, covered them with about 6-8 inches of straw and watered well. When the vines came up through the straw we layed in 6-8 inches more straw. You continue in this manner until harvest. They were growing beautifully and the special thing about this method is supposed to be the fact that you don't have to dig them from the dirt you just lift all the straw with a fork and there they are. I never got to find out because as I said the potato bugs defoliated them completely. I'm going to do it again this year in stacked tires. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for all the info.

MeMo

I just put in one of those el cheapo Big Lots garden arches directly over one of the raised beds to grow beans on. It fit the length, provided it was held onto the boards with copper plumbing brackets for narrow pipes. Looks good, and I can just picture it with Japanese morning glories and the purple yardlong beans I just ordered on one side, Malabar spinach growing on the other. The arch is pretty narrow and tall, so it won't shade things out much underneath.
On the other bed I put the "usual". I used two EMT pipes and tied hog fencing to it. Great for climbing lima beans and a decorative vine of some sort.It is just at the back of one of the beds.

I found the tee-pees hard to get into if using a raised bed system. We also use the EMT pipe system at church running down the middle of beds (can plant greens or peppers on the edge of the bed then)...the church garden is similar to gldno's garden.

GGG

GGG

Glynnis, Having never tried green beans in a raised bed, what width bed would you recommend for them? I could easily do something with steel T posts and could do two layers of 2ft. welded wire with 4x4 openings or something similar. That's about as tall as I could go with fencing since the posts are only that tall. I could also use cattle panels wired to T posts, I'm not sure if those would be any taller though. I don't have access to much in the way of supplies around here. If they don't sell it at the farm store...it's pretty much outabounds for me.

Glenda, How do you store your potatoes and what kind of shelf life do you get with the Yukon Golds?

MeMo

If anyone plans to use the PVC pipe for several seasons, I would try to get Schedule 80 pipe. It is grey and has built-in resistance to the sun. It will become brittle, but will last if handled carefully if you move it after some time.

The bamboo poles aren't tall enough for me either and the beans just fell over the tops. Mine were the almost 6 foot ones. I see they now have some 7-feet tall, but I couldn't reach them anyway. That is why I think the cattle panel hoop will be ideal. Time will tell. I don't mind using the hoophouse that I have rather than rebuilding the greenhouse, because they were used to begin with and pretty uneven.

I have some old windows and doors that I may build into some sort of cottagey greenhouse. I have seen pics of several that I loved. I just can't justify the cost of the kind of gh I would want.....even tho my sis (who is two years older) says we have reached a point in our lives we shouldn't have to justify a darn thing!

You would love her!

MeMo, your post gave me a thought. How about putting four posts in the ground, and then using a length of welded wire fencing to form an arch, with the ends fastened to the posts? I think I might try that myself! It might need a tie or something near the top to help the arch retain it's shape, but I think it would work.

Dayle Ann

Dayle Ann, That just might work if the weight of the beans doesn't pull it down in the center. It would also be a nice way to interplant with cool weather crops just a little bit longer since they would be in the shade of the beans. I'm going to give that a try. Thanks for thinking outside the box...heeee!

MeMo

Awesome! Beautiful! Wonderful! Thanks for the pics!meo

I have an 8x8 raised bed , but I'm expanding with 2 4x8 beds.
I'm thinking of using some of the 4"x4" wire to plant different gr beans,with a 6 ft ceiling, then planting things like lettuce in the shade of the beans.
I love GBs SO much, I'll be planting them in 2 week waves.
Gettin antsy! Nancy

where do you source your straw from?