🌿 Pinch tips to limit top growth



🌿 Stake and tie from the start

Sowing the beans in rows with stakes and string from the start can keep them evenly spaced and up straight. This method avoids overcrowding and great if you have the space. The strings are best doubled so that each stalk can be trapped between them.
🌿 Plant beans into old corn beds

Here is my corn bed after the cobs are finished. I strip off all the leaves and usually leave the stalks tall and plant a broad bean next to each one. This gives the beans a support and also helps to draw nitrogen back into the soil after the corn crop. The bed fills out but with the supporting corn ‘stakes’ in amongst the beans for support. This year I made a tactical error and cut them down too short to do this – brainfade 🤪 – and now the beans have grown way too tall. Aah well, I’ll tip them, stake the corners and wind some string round the boundary. It’ll be fiiiiiine 👍😎
Look wide; grow well, folks 🌿
Loved your broad bean collapse story especially the fiiiiiine ending! Happy growing to you too!
Two things I know about my garden – 1) things WILL die and go wrong, 2) I will love trying again.. and if it truly goes to custard, I get to trench the evidence 😉