Kitchen Garden Forum

I have used the best Bean frame idea and made a 12 foot span.

Intend to divide it in 3 x 4ft sections middle section will be beans the other 2 each side will be peas.

Intend to use bamboo poles for beans.

What would be best for peas, bamboo, netting, string/rope?

It depends which variety of peas you're growing Colin. The short ones like Greenshaft are happy to cling to a row of twiggy sticks about 3 ft high. Tall varieties are better on netting. I hate pea nets as they are quite unmanageable to unravel when you're putting them up (might just be me) so I use stock fencing with the 4 inch squares. It needs something quite strong to fasten it to but is stronger and easier to deal with than plastic netting.

If growing peas and beans in adjacent locations I’d also be wary of using netting for the peas. As plum pudding has suggested, netting can be very difficult to untangle and if there,s a risk that some bean plants will stray “off territory” and also mingle with the pea netting you will get into a terrible tangle at the end of the season when all the haulms have to be dismantled.

I only grow short peas and use the plastic square trellis type mesh for growing them , anchored into the ground at intervals with stout canes interwoven through the squares. At the end of the season I just roll up and stored away. If youre growing taller varieties, wider versions of this might work comfortably

Where is the sun’s direction onto the frame ? Is there a danger that one side of the frame will completely shade out the other one? If so, I would plant. the climbing beans on the shadier side otherwise their thick foliage might shade out much of the sunlight from the peas and you might risk getting a poorer crop.

I don't like netting for peas either. not least because at the end of the season you have to disentangle the hauls from the net in order to use it again the following year. I always use pea sticks for which purpose we grow three buddleias (as well as for the flowers and butterflies, of course). I cut them back about three weeks ago, cut off the tops to stop them seeding and will start using them soon. At the end of the season, you just pull them up, haulms and sticks, and burn them - bingo.

Thank you for your replies.

Direction is North (left) to south (right) looking at the picture, so both sides should get the sun.

Peas are Early Onwards, Green Shaft & Alderman

I am now thinking of using bamboo poles all along and using brown rough string/rope horizontally at 4 inch spacing. When plants have finished it should be easy to pull poles out and hopefully clean the rope.

When I put the peas grown in the green house in the veg bed do I need to cover them with netting?

Will the pheasants or pigeons find them a tasty treat or is it only when they are seeds?

Wildlife does seem partial to tender pea shoots. The main culprits are a gang of House sparrows here so I always put a net or something to keep them off.

I agree with PP - house sparrows tend to flock, so half a dozen birds can completely destroy a whole row of peas in half an hour. If they can find their way into the greenhouse, I would certainly cover them with netting for as long as possible.

I have been using the pea harp method, end of the season just cut the hemp strings and compost the lot

Thanks rowbow

I started putting horizontal string on canes then checked out pea harp method which looks easier.

Do peas need vertical & horizontal lines or just vertical?

Will peas & bean climb up bamboo or do they need string?

In my opinion vertical supports the same as beans.

As peas tend to send out more side shoots than beans there is good reason for having horizontal support as well as vertical.
There is also the planting distance to take into account, peas are much closer together than beans

I wonder if this product is any use to anybody. The North end of my veg plot has a windbreak fence across it. We attached a pea/bean net to it some years ago and cover it every year with annual climbers for display and to attract insects; nasturtium, canary creeper, ipomoea (convolvulus) and eccremocarpus. The netting had started breaking up so needed replacing. The existing stuff was quite fiddly to fit so I wanted something a bit more substantial but decided the plastic mesh usually sold for clematis was too expensive then I stumbled across Green Barrier Fencing (I bought on eBay but it is all over the place https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332158207072). It is not much more expensive than pea/bean and quite substantial.

I have some of this in orange which I was thinking of using when I repair the fence was not aware this is available in green, so thanks for the tip Geoff.