Our Homestead

A friend of mine grows mammoth sunflowers and she leaves the stalks in the ground. The next year she plants some bean seeds around the stalks and the vines climb up on them.
It's an easy and cheap way to grow pole beans and it's something I would like to try myself but I keep forgetting to leave the sunflowers in the ground when harvest time and garden cleaning time rolls around.

I use trellis netting for my lima beans and it works out wonderfully. They practically climb by themselves, I have to do almost nothing.
When they get to the end of the trellis, I let them go for a little while and then I lead them back down.
This method has worked for me year after year and it sure is quick to put the trellis up.

I wanted to add here that hardware cloth does not work for a bean trellis. I tried it this past season and it was a big fail.
The bean plant vines just became entangled and never climbed up on the hardware cloth.
It was worth a try, but it's a no :)

Over time, I've tried several different methods to make a bean trellis. Some worked better than others.

What worked best for me:

I put large poles in the ground, and had them stick out about 7 feet.
Connect the poles with a long stake or another metal pole if it's available.
Run a wire from one pole to the other about a half foot from the ground.
Instead of wire, you can use string too, but wire is better.
Connect the wire to the horizontal stick or pole up top (the one that is between the two vertical poles). Make the connections with string. I use the string that is around our hay and straw bales.

I've also made a trellis teepee style which wasn't bad.