Final Tally: Bean Tunnel

 Harvesting dry beans is relaxing. They take their time to dehydrate and even if their shells mold or discolor, bean seeds inside turn ever more brilliant. Frost typically kills late bloomers and seeds in later pods don't fully develop. This year's bean tunnel produced a little over two pounds of immature fruit that chickens and Guinea fowl heartily devoured. Some years we don't get around to pick the drying bean pods until December but I was anxious to quantify this year's production a bit earlier. Shelling them took about three hours.

Scarlet Runner and Purple Pod Beans Hanging to Dry

The two dozen purple pole bean plants produced around 30 pounds of fresh string beans but we let most of them mature and dry so that we now have two pounds of seeds for years to come. Any that don't get planted will become soup.

Purple Pod Pole Bean Seeds

Scarlet runner beans we grow primarily for show because the fresh large pods are tough to eat. The beans inside are beautiful and the four dozen plants produced five pounds of these shiny gems.

Scarlet Runner Bean Seeds

The real champions in producing food this year were the Italian Zucchino Rampicante squash (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds). Not only did they produce immature fruit from early August through October totaling over 200 pounds, the four squash allowed to mature for seeds together weighed over 25 pounds! These now are the color of butternut squash and will probably cook up like winter squash. Maybe we'll make a pie with a small piece of one for Thanksgiving dinner!

Mature Italian Zucchini, Formerly a Pale, Splotchy Green

We did plant some cucumbers but they produced little edible fruit. Opposite the cukes were beautifully red yard-long beans but we didn't know when to pick them nor did we have recipes for preparing them. We fed seeds that birds didn't steal to our fowl. In another part of the garden we had planted sweet potato squash and they taste exceptional and are quite beautiful. They earned a section in next year's bean tunnel.

Sweet Potato Squash: Some Are Dirty From Growing on the Ground

Bean Tunnel: Growing Four Months

By July, bean and squash seeds planted along the edges of the bean tunnel had grown a foot tall with some flowers. This first week of autumn has already given us two light frosts, killing tender ground hugging squash leaves. In the meantime we've harvested a few hundred pounds of squash and many meals of fresh string beans. We are letting most of the beans dry for use as seeds and soup.

 One very neat aspect of the Italian Zucchini variety we tried is that they become a winter squash with a hard shell when they mature. We're letting a few turn butternut squash color so that we can harvest their seeds when we try them mid winter. This variety has been remarkably productive, way beyond any other we've tried. Now, in late September, a dozen plants are still producing more than 50 pounds per week. A few vines have wilted leaves from insect/viral damage but most are still healthy with vines growing longer. They have avoided frost damage by climbing high on the trellis that raises them above the coldest air near the ground. 

Tender Young Squash Leaves Shriveled by Frost: September 23

July 11: Beans and Squash Starting to Flower

August: Vines Reaching the Top 

Purple Pole Beans Producing a Bumper Crop!

Most of the Chinese Yard Long Beans Hang Low Outside

One Week's Production of Zucchino Rampicante

Italian Zucchini Hanging Down, Making It Difficult to Drive the Tractor Through

Squash Behind Purple Beans

More Italian Zucchinis

Italian Squash Fruito Becoming a Hard Shelled Winter Squash

Vine Trellis or Bean Tunnel

Every week we have the pleasure of entertaining twins, now three-years old, who like to pick and immediately eat fruit and veggies from the garden. Images of different trellises with horizontal sections that have beans hanging down look attractive and very functional. How neat would it be to have a long tunnel that was tall enough so hanging beans along the center would not hit your head? If in the shape of an arch, kids can readily choose their favorite colors and pick beans along the sides hanging at their level.

Bean Tunnel: Under Construction

Setup for Bending Arches Over Wood Form

Tools and Fasteners Needed  to Bend and Connect the Aluminum Extrusions Together

I have a lot of aluminum extrusions left over from building solar collectors. One type, 13 feet long, is especially easy to both bend and join together. Trials arrived at arches that use one and a half lengths that are bent to be 80 inches high at the center and eight feet wide at the base, with  each end 8 inches below ground. The tunnel is 51 feet long with 27 arches. To support trellis netting, string and cable lash six members of the same material perpendicular to the arches and run the length of the tunnel.

Early View Looking South

Four kinds of beans, along with some cucumbers and fancy squash, grow on both sides of the arches. To minimize planting effort, only a narrow strip of soil on each side was prepared and heavily mulched. For easy maintenance, both ends of the tunnel have gates so that grass inside the tunnel can be mowed. A knee-high rabbit proof fence around the facility keeps critters from eating the plants. Experience shows that any vine that winds into the fencing has to be rerouted to prevent it from being nibbled off. They must be very tasty.

North End Showing Squash and Trellis Netting

It will be awhile before the various vines climb over the top of the trellis netting, flower and hang their fruit inside!

Inside View Looking North

Gate Prevents Critters from Eating Plants Inside