How to Make a Teepee for Your Climbing Beans

, written by Benedict Vanheems gb flag

Runner beans growing up a teepee

Warmer soil means it’s now time to plant beans in most areas. Climbing beans are quick growing and the pods are produced over many weeks for regular picking, so they’re a really rewarding crop to grow. You can grow them in parallel rows the traditional way, but for an attractive alternative it’s hard to beat a bean teepee. So here’s how to plant one...

DIY Bean Teepee

Bean teepees offer a quick, convenient way of providing support for climbing beans, or even scrambling varieties of pea. Unlike traditional ridge-supported beans, the rounded profile of a teepee means it’s less likely to catch the wind, making it a wiser choice for more exposed locations.

Extra-long bamboo canes are most commonly used for this type of support, but you can use any tall, straight supports to make your bean teepee. Lightweight aluminium or PVC pipes are super-durable, while hazel poles give a natural, sustainable option.

Preparing Your Soil for Beans

As always, proper soil preparation is essential to produce healthy plants and great harvests. Beans and peas naturally fix nitrogen at their roots, but that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate a rich, fertile soil. A few weeks before planting, incorporate lots of well-rotted compost to give dark, crumbly soil that beans will love.

It’s also worth making sure that your beans will receive at least five hours of direct sunshine a day.

“Girl
Bean teepees make great places for kids to play!

Build Your Bean Teepee

The diameter and height of your teepee is up to you. A wide, tall structure can provide enough room within the teepee to serve as a green hidey-hole for children – a place of escape to fuel their sense of adventure! Aim for a width of at least three feet (around a metre), and set the poles or canes so they’re about one foot (30cm) apart.

Our Garden Planner includes a teepee structure that you can add to your plan. It’s scalable, so you can extend it to real-world size, and then drop in your bean plants at the base of the canes. Refer to your plan’s Plant List to see recommended planting and harvesting times for your location, based on data from your nearest weather station, so you know when it’s safe to plant and when to expect your pods to be ready to pick.

“Bean
You can plan out the position of your bean teepee in the Garden Planner

In our video I’m using 8ft (2.4m) bamboo canes for my teepee. This means that even after pushing them firmly into the soil and tying the tops together, there’s still at least six feet (2m) of cane for the beans to grow up. Push the canes at least six inches (15cm) into the ground to anchor them into place – you don’t want your teepee to blow over at the first gust of wind.

A good way to get an even circle is to use a bin lid or similar object as a guide. Set the first canes in at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, then fill in between. Once the canes are in, tie a piece of string onto one of the canes, near the top. Then flex the next cane in towards it and tie it into place. Continue tying in the canes until they are all secured at the centre.

“Using
Use a bin lid to space your teepee’s canes

To help the beans get a grip of the teepee, run string horizontally across the canes. For this height of teepee use three lines – the first about a foot (30cm) off the ground, then the other two evenly spaced along the remaining length of canes.

Plant Your Bean Teepee

Beans are pretty quick out of the starting blocks, so you could sow two beans at the base of each cane, then remove the weakest of the two seedlings so the strongest can grow on. But I’m an impatient gardener and have some beans that I sowed into pots a few weeks ago, which are now ready to plant out. To plant your beans, dig a hole, pop the plant into position then carefully firm the soil around the rootball.

“Planting
Plant your beans at the base of the canes and loosely tie them in

Encourage the young plants upwards by leaning them against the canes then loosely tying them in. Once they settle they should find their own way up without any further intervention. Water beans after planting and keep the soil moist to encourage steady growth, lots of flowers…and lots of beans!

The best way to ensure a plentiful supply of pods is to check your teepee every couple of days and pick any pods you find that are big enough. Keep on picking, and the beans will keep on coming!

Building a bean teepee is a simple, fun project, and it’s great for getting kids interested in gardening too. Let us know in the comments section below whether you’re planning on growing a bean teepee this season – and don’t forget to share your recommended bean varieties too!

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Comments

 
"Great idea! I just love this website. :)"
Jamie on Friday 25 May 2018
"Creating a Teepee is a well tested and successful technique, especially if you can keep the snails and slugs away from the base.One word of caution. Always use thich gloves when fixing bamboo canes in the ground, otherwise you may suffer horrid splinters in your hand if the ground if firm."
Alan Phillips on Sunday 27 May 2018
" Thanks for the kind words Jamie! And thank you Alan for the tip. ??"
Ben Vanheems on Sunday 27 May 2018
"Mighty Runner Beans The best results for cultivating beans is to excavate a trench 18 inches deep by 18 inches wide and as long as your garden will allow. Refill the trench with well rotted rich farmyard manure up to 14 inches and complete the refill with 4 inches of topsoil on top of the compost. Water well at least once to twice weekly for superb crop. Good luck with this method of growing and dont forget to let me know how you get on. Tony P"
Tony Pilgrim on Thursday 31 May 2018
"Hi Tony. Thanks for your handy tips on growing beans. My grandfather used to grow beans in a very similar way - lots of well-rotted manure in trenches - and always had spectacular crops, so I can vouch for your technique. I think often people assume beans don't need much of a fertile soil because they lock up nitrogen from the atmosphere in their roots, but it's very much the case that they LOVE a rich, nourishing soil like this."
Ben Vanheems on Friday 1 June 2018
"I want to build tee pees but only using natural resources. Can anyone recommend a suitable plant or grass that is strong enough to support and secure the structures?"
Dave Spindley on Wednesday 5 June 2019
"Hi Dave. My neighbour uses bamboo canes from a bamboo plant he has in his garden. It grows up each year, giving plenty of canes. I have used hazel prunings in the past too - cut from a coppiced plant to give good, straight, strong poles."
Ben Vanheems on Wednesday 5 June 2019
"This will really Help, I did my last ones wrong. This will be sturdy! I am going to plant Malibu. "
Debie Minton on Monday 8 February 2021
"Great to hear you're inspired to give this a go Debie. It's definitely sturdy, so should help."
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 9 February 2021
"My daughter brought a few of these beans home to plant and she did not know this is what they were but we put up our regular Bean trellis and these things are already 8 ft tall so I need to start by building another trelish beside them so they can begin to grow downward is that a bad idea I don't have room for them to keep going up though 😬🤔 you knew what kind of beans they were could have prepared better😂 she thought they were regular green style beans. Oh yeah these have a bunch of pretty orange flowers but they're starting to fall off and there are no beans yet I can't figure out how they're going to start producing beans any other way please help should I just pull them out I don't want to grow something this large if we're not going to get any veg off of it thank you"
Naomi Taylor on Friday 22 July 2022

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