Pole Vaulting Beans

My overall goal for most of my garden is to try to get one pound of produce per square foot of garden bed.  This isn’t a hard and set rule but more like a guideline – like the Pirates’ Code.  To get that poundage from my bean bed I like to use tall poles.

My Blue Lake beans (M.R.’s Select Stringless) were planted on May 24^th.  After a cool June, they’re finally ready to pole.  I seed them in 7 inch square centres – I run my row marker up the bed and across the (4 foot wide) bed using lines spaced 7 inches apart and plant a seed at each line intersection over the whole bed. That is 98 seeds in 34 square feet of bed.  The germination rate of 89% was surprisingly good for my homegrown older 2015 seed.

My poles are 30 years old, made of Western Red Cedar and were hand split from a scrounged piece of an ancient dead fall, found on a local riverbank’s high-water line.  Each pole tries to be one and a quarter inch square and 10 feet long.

I found that three rows of poles down a bed don’t work as well as two rows.  The centre row is too shaded, less productive, and harder to pick from the path. The holes in the soil for the poles are premade using the round tapered end of my prybar.  I place one pole for each four plants following the two outer rows of beans running next to the path. 

The plants stranded in the middle of the bed find their way to either side’s poles usually without any help, but I do a bit of initial supervising so that some poles won’t get lonely.

The equidistant spacing of plants over the whole bed spreads the nutritional and watering load evenly and the shading of the intensive planting really slows weed germination and growth.  The two rows of poles work well for sun exposure and picking.

The smooth (split not sawn) poles are a bit slippery for the beans and they had a tendency to slide down the pole once they got most of the way up so I drilled a hole in each pole at the midway point and slide a nail through the hole.  This stops any plants from sliding down the pole.

With my sandy soil the poles can be a bit loose in their soil holes so with a thin stick I push a thin wedge shaped stone down each side of each pole to firm them up.  This keeps the dreaded soil compaction to a minimum.


Four cross pieces are tied near the tops of the poles, one down each row of poles and the other two across the rows at the ends of the bed.  Each pole top is tied to the cross piece.  This keeps the poles unified to resist wind or other strains.

I understand 10 foot poles are a bit excessive, and I’ve used them for so many years waiting for the sharpened ends to rot away but they never have. Split cedar rots slower than sawn cedar when in contact with the soil because the grain isn't exposed.  So I’ve never shortened them. 

For years, to pick my highest beans, I stood on a five gallon pail parked on a rectangular stool set up on the path.  It was rather hairy and I only fell off twice (that I can remember). 

Now that I’m way too old for that, I’ve discovered a neat way to use my three-legged 6 foot orchard (telescope observing) ladder in my garden and still keep the ladder’s feet only on the paths.  Using a 1 X 4 inch board clamped to the third, single leg I extend that leg another 16 inches which can then reach across the bed to the path on the other side.  This is now how I pick my beans on 10 foot poles.

TOG had an ingenious way to pole his 100 foot rows of beans.  I used to have the fun chore of installing his poles, first driving metal stakes with spaced holes on the upper halves.  Then I’d screw eight foot 2 X 3’s onto the stakes and run a wire across the tops of the 2 X 3’s and along the bottom. 

TOG would then brace and stretch the wires taught, then I’d run sisal twine up and down between the wires in a zig zag.  That was done by tossing the twine roll over the top wire and catching it, then looping it under the lower wire, then tossing it up again, etc.  Removal of the vines and twine at the end of the season was easy; it was all pulled down and composted together.

Perhaps if I didn’t have my bean poles, I’d have tried to copy something like that.  If I didn’t have my aluminum scoping ladder I would make a short three or four step wooden one with an outrigger hinged to reach through the bed to the opposite path.

If all goes well, later this year we’ll have up to 34 lbs of excellent green beans in the freezer.

Happy Gardening.