Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans

[Chickenberry]

I am planting a smallish garden this year. We have 4 heirloom (don't remember name) tomato plants

, 3 A&M jalepeno plants

and a whole bunch of Kentucky Pole Beans!

The beans were planted a week and 3 days ago and right now it looks like more than half of them are coming up. They are planted in circles around poles. This year we will be attaching fishing line and making lines for them to climb. Has anyone here grown this kind (or any other kind) of climbing green beans? I'm so excited! I plan to can them!

 

[gritsar]

Planted alot of them back home in NC, but always ate them fresh. Don't have any canning tips about them, sorry.

I'd like to share how an old farmer with limited space taught me how to plant them though.

Plant large sturdy sunflower plants first. Give the sunflowers about two weeks, then plant a few of the pole beans around them. The beans will use the sunflowers for support and the sunflowers won't mind.

Enjoy!

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
Great idea!

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
Great idea!

also on the southern side of any building you can put a post on each end then run strands of cheap cotton butchers twin from one side to the other. do this from top to bottom about 3 to six inches apart and let the beans use it as a sort of ladder to climb up plus it looks pretty against the building.

you can also train them to climb up any decorative trees you may have, an old umbrella frame stuck in the ground makes a good trelise for them as well.

Vegetables do not have to be confined to a vegetable garden of their own. they can be easily incorporated into the land scape and look very pretty too. your neighbors will never know

 

[Chickenberry]

We thought about letting them run along our chainlink fence too. What a great idea about the sunflowers! Wow!

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I usually plant Blue Lake stringless pole beans. I know Kentucky Wonder are very popular, too. I love green beans fresh from the garden. I like to snap them into a saute pan with a little butter and gently cook just until tender. Usually I pop a lid on them at first, so they stay moist and just steam a little from the water they were rinsed in. Mmm...

I've got a couple of trellises for them now. I've also used garden support netting and just string. It all works. That's a great tip for sunflowers, I had never heard of that before. I know some people use corn as a support. Fencing works, too. I like pole beans. They don't take up much space, I get a lot of beans and I don't have to stoop to pick them.

I usually put most of our extra veggies in the freezer, instead of canning, since we have an extra freezer. I ate a lot of canned green beans that my great-grandmother used to give us as a kid, though. She also gave us canned tomatoes and different kinds of pickles. I really liked the sweet watermelon rind pickles. She also canned dills and little sweet pickles. And sauerkraut. She moved here from Germany when my grandmother was a child. She also made her own potato wine.

 

[Opa]

I have my garden total fence with 2x4 wire to a heighth of 6'. I plant both Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder beans along the fence. For several years this worked great until the deer finally discovered them. I solved that problem with the addition of two hot wires on 12" standoffs placed at 2' and 4'.

One year at my son's house he had made a trellis for beans by anchoring the ends of section of wire cow panel to the ground about 4' apart. I loved the idea and have since placed one in front of my garden gate and then planted a couple of trumpet vines. Sure makes a pretty garden entryway.

 

[Carols Clucks]

We have a bunch of them planted too!