Bean tepee

I grow climbing beans; the variety Purple King is our favourite. I grow them on a ‘tepee’ and they do very well. Because the tepees are not permanent structures I can rotate the bean beds as much as desired. Instructions for making a tepee are as follows:

Purchase a roll of wire mesh, 25mm (1″) openings. I get mine at Bunnings (if you’re not in Australia, substitute your local big-box hardware franchise). It’s normally 36″ wide. Cut off a 250 cm length (since the opening size is 1″ this will be exactly 100 squares long. Easy to count. You’re going to form this length into a circle, which will end up about 80 cm in diameter. You will get 2 or more circles out of each length, depending on the height you make the circles. We have wild rabbits (they love beans) so I need to make my circles 18″ high to keep them out, so I get 2 out of each length. If you haven’t got rabbits or similar critters, you only need to make the circles 6″ high, in which case you’ll get 5 or 6. Place the circle on the ground and add a good layer of rich soil or compost. Put a tall stake in the middle. Before hammering in the stake, drill a hole in the centre top big enough to loosely hold a decent sized nail and once the stake’s in the ground, slip the nail into the hole.

Tie some string to the nail and stretch it down to the wire, through the back and out the front and along 5 squares, in the front and out the back and up to the top of the stake and around the nail. Back down again and keep going till you get back to where you started (“rinse, lather, repeat” as a friend of mine would say). I usually sow 100 beans inside the ring in 2 rows around the perimeter. As they grow they climb the strings and violà, a bean tepee.