iGrowVeg

Bean Poles, Polytunnel and more Sowings

Posted on 07. May, 2007 by Tracey in How to Grow Veg, My Veg Plot

A busy day today, I have got loads done on a day that could easily be the windiest day of the year! Today I have been mostly fixing the Bean poles together with string on Plot 3, constructing my cheap polytunnel and doing some succesional sowings on Plot 1 & 2.

Plot 3 – Bean Poles

I was advised by my boyfriends grandad – Tom to do the bean poles in a tripod/maypole shape with four bamboo canes and tied with string at the top. Then I can plant 2 beans per cane and it will produce a lot more beans as they will grow all the way around the poles. I have put up 2 of these for the Runner & Dwarf Beans and put a couple horizontal canes on the top to make the frame sturdy.

Another tip from Tom was when the beans are flowering to put a water and sugar mix into a spray bottle and spray the flowers so they attract more bumble bees who will polinate thus I will get more beans. This one sounds like a great idea, I will note it for later.

Plot 1 & 2

07.05.07 – More Sowings of the following were made:

• Plot 2 – A row of Cabbages – Frostie,
• Plot 2 – A row of Chard – Bright Lights,
• Plot 1 – A row of Onions – Silverskin,
• Plot 1 – A row of Carrots – Resistafly,
• Plot 1 – A row of Lettuce – Lolla Rossa,
• Plot 1 – Squeezed in a few more Radishes as the others will be harvested next week.

Cheap Polytunnel on Plots 1 & 2.

As the potatoes have been pushing up the netting I thought it was about time to raise the netting to make my own polytunnel.
I cut 4 x 6ft bamboo in half and bought some cane rubber toppers on Ebay for 10 for 99p and pushed them onto the top of each of the 8 canes. I then pushed the canes into the ground (2 on each side of the raised bed, so 4 in a bed), threw over the netting and secured with even bigger rocks.

As it was windy today I could actually test out the tunnel and whether it needed more rocks to hold the netting down. It looks great, see for yourself.

Cloche or Polytunnel over Raised Bed