Hi folks, here’s an update on our family garden. Our bean pole plants, now christened Kirby and The United Colors of Beanington, continue to grow at a fast pace, now reaching above the usual canopy of weeds. It didn’t take long for them to grow above the first set of “teepees” we made using chopsticks, so I ordered some bamboo poles from Home Depot and some simple twine. My goal throughout this little project has been to keep things cheap and simple, so rather than buying proper trellises, which seemed overkill for 2-3 plants anyway, I just made a bigger teepee.
The teepee was very easy to make, using good, sturdy twine to bind it at the top, then making loops around at certain points. I carefully put the growing plants on the bottom rung, and they quickly adapted. They are now the same height as my son!
However, one thing I have noticed so far is that they are still not sprouting beans. It has been roughly 2 months so far, and pole beans supposedly mature by now, which has me a bit concerned. I did some digging on the Internet, and found that there’s likely a few possible scenarios:
- Not enough sunlight, which seems likely in my very shady plot of land. Chances are, next time I’ll try growing kale or lettuce which does just fine in such environments.
- Not enough water, which seems unlikely given how much it rains here in the PNW.
- Wrong concentration of nitrogen in the soil. Online resources show how to measure this, but as I am keeping things simple and cheap, I am probably not going to look into this.
My hope is that Kirby and Beanington are just a bit “slow” to mature and we’ll have beans before long. Then again, even if they don’t it’s been a fun gardening project and I have learned a lot, so it’s not all for nothing.
Update: we have beans now!
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 