 |
| Pole beans planted around bamboo supports with okra seeds planted in front of them. |
The okra was planted 12 inches apart with 18 inches between rows, the two varieties planted were Cowhorn and Stewart's Zeebest. Four or five pole beans are planted at the bottom of each bamboo stake with 15 inches between stakes. The pole bean varieties are: Cherokee Trail of Tears, Purple Podded, Romano, Marengo Romano, Kentucky Wonder, Kentucky Blue, and Wisely Magic scarlet runner. The soil in my garden is fairly heavy tending to clay, so I plant the seeds shallower than what is called for on the seeds packets, otherwise the sprouts have problems breaking through the crusty soil.
Cucumbers, luffa, bitter melon, edible gourds, and peas will probably all be supported with bamboo stakes same as the pole beans. Seeing the bamboo stakes in the garden amuses me to no end. There's something so charmingly rustic about them.
Looking back in 2012 which was an unreasonably warm year, it looks like I am about a month behind in comparison to last year. The seedling starts are a month behind and planting is a month behind. I was hoping for tomatoes in June again, but that seems highly unlikely.
6 comments:
You have been busy in the garden. 64 tomato plants! That would fill up my entire vegetable garden, I'm envious.
I do know the pain of finding ravaged seedlings in the garden. And other plants as well. The birds have found my young broccoli plants to be tasty. I tied some mylar flash tape to some poles and let it flap around in the midstof the plants and that seems to be working to keep the birds out of there for now.
Admittedly, I went a little overboard with the number of plants this year, but I'm half expecting to lose most of them to wildlife.
I think your garden is lovely, and what you are able to grow in your space is just amazing.
I noticed that a couple of years ago you experimented with planting okra and some vine plants together, with the most success at the time with pole beans. I was considering planting Kentucky wonder pole beans this year and using okra as the poles to grow them on, which is how I found your blog. After your experiment, would you recommend it? How did yours turn out? Did you plant one bean plant on each okra stalk or could you do more than one? I have limited gardening space so was wanting to do it to save space and be able to grow as much as possible.
I had limited success with growing pole beans on okra, I probably wouldn't recommend it. With a few beans planted around each okra plant, the only pole beans that were able to produce were the Red Noodle yard-long beans and they are a very vigorous vine to begin with. But I grew Cow Horn okra that year which is a robust plant, so it might have shaded the beans too much.
Now, I had relatives that grew pole beans on corn and it did very well for them. Instead of growing a bean vine on each corn stalk, they planted a few rows of pole beans on the west side of a block of corn. The pole beans looked like they climbed up each other as well as the corn, and then grew up over the tops of the corn.
By the time I saw their garden in the fall the corn stalks were drying up and the corn already picked, they were just holding up the beans at that point which makes me think the pole beans were planted later than the corn.
Ok, thank you for your help and the information. I knew they were good companion plants for corn (I'm not planting any this year though) which is what gave me the idea of trying it on the okra. I will definately put my beans on my trellis then to give me a better chance at a good harvest. I am growing clemson spikeless okra so I might try some vines on one or two of them just to see how they do but as extra vines not as my main crop of beans. Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it.
Your welcome Tessa, blogs are a great way to share information. I really was hoping the okra pole bean experiment would turn out for me. Please come back and tell me how it worked out for you.
Post a Comment