I'm no gardening genius, that goes without saying. One thing I would wonder about, though, in planting too widely would be that some plants "self mulch" themselves by shading the ground between them and their neighbors. With two big of a space weeds and grass have more area to sprout up in. Naturally once the bean plants get larger they shade more ground. So, if you can stay ahead of the grass and weeds until the plants do their own "mulching" I say go for it and report back. FWIW ;)

Interesting results! I've always planted bush beans 3" apart because, like you, I don't have much space to work with. The good thing about this approach is that the plants support each other, especially the varieties that pretend they want to climb (Roma for me). However, harvesting is a pain. This year I'm growing purple fillet beans because I was tired of leaving too many green ones behind.

Were your bush beans floppy when you gave them more space?

Bush beans with more space are floppy for me, but they produce all the same. They straighten up pretty well whenever they flop over. I’ve only done up to 6” so far however.

I suppose that it depends on the given situation. Yes, you may get a slightly higher yield overall when planting intensively in a home garden, BUT that is not my goal. Well, it was my goal for a while, but I’ve since realized that, in my small garden Ill never grow enough to feed us, or for us to survive on. That’s just a given. So I’ve changed my view on things. Instead, I’d like to grow a fair amount of what we eat, and food we truly enjoy that is just not available in the grocery store (or, at least, not near as good a quality as) but with as little a dent in our lives (and bank account) as possible. So. Examples, Irrigation? I don’t mind spending the time irrigating, but on city water it is EXPENSIVE. So I’ve gotten around it by growing in as deep a mulch as possible, burying organic matter in the soil, etc. (Which is another experiment I’ve been conducting) We live in a temperate climate as well, so normally we get adequate rainfall. Though this summer was very, very dry. I’m not 100% no irrigation yet, but I’m getting there one experiment at a time. No irrigation is sooo hard to do with intensive gardening, or so I’m finding.

And I really do wonder if I’m getting the best yields overall by planting extensively rather than intensively. It seems as if intensively planted beds are much more susceptible to pests and disease, and they just don’t recover as well from weather events (like the hail we received in June). Extensively planted beds, however, don’t have near the amount of issues and bounce back much quicker from harsh weather events (Though problems are still prevalent.). I’m curious as to whether the very little pests and disease is making up for lost yield.

I suppose a realization I’ve had is, really, not to be too greedy.

I’ll keep reporting back with results I get from the experiments!!

Over the years, there have been quite a few threads here (on the Bean Forum) about bean spacing, with the pros & cons of different spacing & planting strategies. This is one of those threads: Pole Bean Spacing

As a dedicated bean seed saver, I am an advocate of wider spacing, because it produces the healthiest plants - and the largest, healthiest seed. It also improves air flow, which reduces the susceptibility to bean diseases, especially in wet climates. And as a home gardener, I am less concerned with the total yield than I am with the quality of the produce... and wider spacing encourages the highest quality. Beans will adapt to take advantage of whatever space may be available, and will quickly branch to fill in any gaps.

I agree with observations of closer spacing being self-mulching; but as others have already observed, insects & diseases can quickly get out of control, and harvesting in the dense foliage is difficult. And speaking from experience, close spacing is really problematic where rodents are an issue. The intensive spacing advocated by someone in the warmer drier climate of California, may not be practical in cooler and/or more humid climates. Close spacing also makes more sense for dry beans (where there is no need for access during the growing season) than for snap beans (which must be harvested frequently from beneath the canopy). Not surprisingly, most of the high yield claims for intensive bean spacing are for dry beans - not for snaps.

IMO it is better to use wider spacing, and add a thick layer of straw or hay beneath for water retention. This has the added benefit of preventing mud splash, which seems detrimental to all beans. Because mulch also shelters insects, I add it only after the beans have been growing for awhile - for pole beans, when the first runners appear. After adding the mulch, I spray irrigate; both to "set" the mulch to keep it from being blown away, and to rinse off any mud which may already be in the leaves. The result is noticeable - increased greening & vigor within a day or two.

"zeedman, are your conclusions for both pole and bush beans?"

That depends upon which conclusion you refer to, but for the most part, yes.

Adequate spacing can be more of an issue with bush beans. Tightly spaced, the closed canopy helps to preserve moisture & keep weeds down. In arid climates, sandy soils, or if the beans will receive minimal care (such as with dry beans) this can be an effective strategy. But the potential drawbacks are:

- that rodents could nest under the canopy & destroy much of the crop, and

- in poorly drained soils, or in humid or rainy locations, tight spacing could promote the rapid spread of disease.

I have experienced both situations in my early years of gardening, they were lessons learned the hard way. A dense wide-row planting of bush beans was almost completely "harvested" by mice from below, before the seeds could mature. Mice still cause some damage, but not to that degree. A row of closely-spaced pole beans became heavily infected by rust, due to frequent rainfall, and poor air flow through the vines.

With pole beans, the result of spacing too closely is to have a huge, impenetrable mass of vines at the top of the pole/trellis. To a point, all healthy pole beans do that, once they have reached the top of their support... and for the most rampant varieties, unless you provide a 20' trellis, this is unavoidable. ;-) But if the top growth becomes excessive, it shades the lower growth, is nearly impossible to pick through, and becomes counter-productive. By that definition, one of my pole beans this year - already at 12" spacing between plants - is still too close.

Proper spacing is not a "one size fits all" rule. Climate, soil type & fertility, culture, and the choice of variety are all factors to consider. What works best for me may not be the best choice for others, and vice versa. I am constantly updating my variety-specific observations, to adjust spacing for optimal growth... it is a work in progress.

For the past several years we've planted our bush beans double rowed within one wide row. Prep one long wide row ~20 inches wide, 25 ft long, with 2 rows of beans planted 2-3" apart in rows within the wide row. The 2 inner rows of beans are about 12" apart running parallel down the wide row. I string up both of the outer sides of the 2 rows with twine as they grow, this is for extra support during storms. Use sticks or short rebar at stakes for the twine on both sides of the 2 inner rows. This keeps the beans clean and easy to pick from both sides, the twine holds the heavy plants up on the outside and the two rows of beans support each other on the inside. We freeze and can a lot of snaps so after 4-5 pickings they're about done, we pull them up with one last harvest and compost the rest,, the spreading melons take over from there. You may have to read that twice, I did ;-)

I have intermittent back problems so tasks requiring a lot of bending over are often hard for me. I know a lot of people who do string twine around floppy things and depending on how good they are at it, it works well, but I can't always do it. So many people try those small tomato cages for tomatoes, and they're just too small to be of any help at all for a tomato plant, so when they find that out they put them in their next garage sale and I always snap them up. They are wonderful at supporting smaller plants, like peppers and bush beans, and for marking where the main squash or melon stem is coming out of the ground. (helpful when having to water). Fairly easy to store in the off-season, nested inside each other.

Wow! Zeedman, those bean plants in the thread you linked just look so healthy. As for the self-mulch aspect, I typically use a deep mulch (8-12”), so that is not a concern for me. Normally, when planting time comes around, I will draw back the mulch to seed or plant the row or bed, then once they’re to a decent size I’ll stick it back up around them. I have yet to have issues with bugs in mulch, after 2 years. Every fall while it is still hot I tend to pull the mulch back completely and pick through it to find any bugs however. I then leave it off as cool weather approaches (letting the sun roast any bugs for me as well as preventing slugs common in spring and fall). That could be the reason. Then again, I have an abundance of frogs living in my garden because of it.

Ilene, I do hope to experiment more with burying organic matter in the soil next year. Supposedly that has been done in Africa for centuries. They bury dried grasses (common in their savannahs), or old leaves, etc. in the soil maybe a foot deep. This begins to rot with a good watering, and will act as a water resovoir that plants can grow into as the organic matter latches onto the moisture. It will also wick water out 1 foot in every direction, depending on its size.

I too tend to wonder about the affect of our water in our gardens. The fact that every time I use our tap water to feed my sourdough starter, my sourdough starter simply dies, tends to throw me off a bit. We filter all of our drinking water with a reverse-osmosis system, but don’t have anything set up for the garden.

In relation to the watering discussion, I am reading a book called “Gardening When It Counts” by Steve Solomon. He advises extensive planting of just about everything, claiming a not only higher-in-nutrition end product, but also a better tasting end product. He also claims to not have near the bug issues he had while intensive gardening in his younger years. His plants grow bigger, healthier, and have so much room to grow for moisture around them, he hardly has to water. It’s an interesting idea. Of course, as with every book, you’ve got to pick and choose what works best for you.

We have a high water table and this year and this year it has been the wettest August on record here in NH. When I build a garden bed, I use the lasagna method to add lots of organic matter to the soil. It doesn't take very long for the soil to condense again. I have found a few interesting websites on "rain gardens" where a homeowner digs trenches and berms to catch water coming off the roof. Of course, this might not be feasible in a large garden on flat ground away from the house or other building.

I probably planted my pole beans much too close. I use concrete reinforcing panels leftover from a project as trellises. They are held in place by steel posts which last a few years. I tend to only move the trellises every couple of years. In addition to close spacing of the bean seeds, I planted peppers on each side of the bean rows. Due to the unusual humidity, I'm having powdery mildew problems for the first time on tomato plants in the next bed. This is all in a high tunnel with the sides rolled up. Tomatoes weren't pruned. I planted sugar snaps on this trellis last year so they didn't last long enough to add to the air circulation problem. I have some damage to the pole beans from Japanese beetles but from a 4' double row I'm filling a large colander every two days and right now, only one of the rows is heavily producing. The second row is a different variety planted a couple of weeks later. My rambling point is I'm growing Fortex pole beans which are very prolific, a very long pod and seem to stay tender longer. The second variety is a yellow, flat pod Golden Gate pole which is only just starting to produce. The bush bean I used to love was Provider which I think was a blue lake type. I think due to the size of the pods, I'm getting a lot more beans per planted seed with Fortex.

I used one seed for every 3-4" of a French filet type that I wanted to have late in the season. Here it is late August and it is blossoming. First frost might be 9/18 so we should get beans in time. I planted Fortex late because I wanted Sugar Snap peas to get priority on the dinner table but I think I will change that next year to plant fewer seeds and time things better. This French filet type seems to be very sprawl for a bush bean. I remember Provider as being neat and compact small plants. I'm only feed two people daily plus 5 more once a week and I don't like to can or freeze beans.

One of the things I don't understand about my high tunnel is that I don't need to water much. The ground stays drier because of the plastic roof. It's a wood frame structure covered with greenhouse plastic. The plants don't get rained on so I have to provide some water. Of course, the advantage is I don't have to worry about the beans being too wet from rain so I can't pick.

"...My rambling point is I'm growing Fortex pole beans which are very prolific, a very long pod and seem to stay tender longer."

Fortex is one of my favorite snap beans; Emerite (which I'm growing this year) is another. Both are filet-type pole beans, and both seem to benefit from closer spacing than most of my beans. I plant seeds in hills 12" apart, then thin to the strongest two. At that spacing, they densely fill the trellis, but do not become unmanageable.

Zeedman, do you plant your climbing beans in double rows on either side of the trellis, or just a single row on one side?

I plant beans in single rows, directly beneath the trellis. If I planted double rows, I would increase the spacing to compensate. Double rows may increase nutrient uptake (due to the increased root area), and perhaps provide some self-mulching between the rows. But regardless of how many plants are on the support, the amount of available sunlight to plants on the surface of the support remains the same. The vines will not set more pods than they can support, given the amount of sunlight each plant receives. There might be a slight increase in yield per square foot of trellis, given that nearly all of the available sunlight would be utilized... but the yield per plant would be reduced.

If space was at a premium, my season was short, and I wanted to get the maximum amount of beans for the space, I would plant a single row of pole beans running E-W, and a row of bush beans 12-16" away from that on the South side. Since my season is long enough to get multiple sets of snaps from the pole beans (the second set is beginning now), I have never found additional rows to be necessary.

That's what I was wondering, whether the rules were different for pole beans. I always plant mine about 3" apart and sometimes on both sides of the trellis wire, staggered so that the bean row on the opposite side has beans coming up across from the spaces in the bean row it's across from. I was watching a YouTube where the person said that about the only limitation they have is that each vine needs its own "string" or "wire" on which to climb. I normally do not have problems with them crowding each other out, at least as far as I can tell, and I usually have some that don't come up so that balances things out. My favorite bean has been some Lazy Housewives that I got in a seed trade over 10 years ago, but I had crop failure three years in a row after we moved out here and didn't get seed, and then when I had to buy seed I found that what's on the market is not the same bean as what I had, not by either the name of Lazy Housewife OR Lazy Wife. I have grown Fortex before and it is all Zeedman says and more except for the fact that I can never get any far enough to maturity to make viable seed for the next year. To leave the bean on the vine to mature is inviting the Japanese beetles and grasshoppers, both have an affinity for drilling through the tender bean pod into the bean. I can't seem to grow yellow beans for this reason. If none of this year's beans work out I may buy a large bag of Fortex seed, though, for the coming garden year. I put a picture of my beans on the last post I put up so I won't belabor that here.

I didn't grow pole beans this year because they are a magnet for the Japanese Beetles. I typically use 6" spacing on pole beans. My Maxibel fillet beans succumbed to both deer browsing and bean mosaic virus this spring so I yanked them out without harvesting a pod. Now I have a nice patch of well protected Provider bush beans that just started setting pods in the last couple days. I planted 3 rows in a 4'x10' bed with 3" spacing in row and probably got around 80-85% germination from my own saved seed. They support each other well with close spacing and I don't find harvesting to be too difficult but I always miss some. Harvesting the middle row can be a little hard on the back though.

I hate harvesting bush beans in hot weather because I sweat all over the harvest. I prefer growing them in the fall to harvest in September when it has cooled down...hopefully!

"I have grown Fortex before and it is all Zeedman says and more except
for the fact that I can never get any far enough to maturity to make
viable seed for the next year."

Yes, it is tough to save seed from Fortex (and from Emerite). The same traits that keep them tender for a long time, also make them VERY slow to mature. I save seed for both, but it usually takes the entire season to do so... and sometimes the frost kills the vines prematurely. More often than not, though, the first frost just kills some of the leaves, and the vines themselves (with some surviving leaves) put all of their energy into ripening the most mature pods. The killing freeze is usually 10-14 days later, so I harvest a lot of dry seed in that period.

It is especially important to get either of these two varieties in early, if you plan to save seed. Even if you direct seed for snaps, starting a few as early transplants will increase the odds of getting seed. A warm, dry Spring this year allowed me to plant Emerite very early, so after a couple pickings, I let one of the two rows go for seed. If all goes well, I'll have enough dry seed to plant & share for 5-6 years... or maybe longer. The Emerite seed I planted this year was last saved in 2009, and still had close to 100% germination.

"I didn't grow pole beans this year because they are a magnet for the Japanese Beetles."

They are attractive to JBs; but at least in my gardens, the beetles all congregate near the top - where they are easy to spot & kill. The numbers in my area are not (yet) insurmountable, I am able to keep the damage minimal by killing all the beetles on the plants once a day, with insecticidal soap spray. All of my surrounding neighbors had their lawns professionally treated; if I treat mine with milky spore, chances are the JB population locally will remain controllable.

Zeedman - As it turns out I could have gotten away with pole beans this year. I treated a pretty wide area around the garden with Milky Spore at about this time last year and the JB population was probably about 10% of what I had last year in my garden. My neighbors had much more than I did. The ones I did have went after my asparagus and my Vardaman sweet potatoes leaving the other 2 varieties alone.

I never tried spraying insecticidal soap on the JBs. I did hand pick last year but that is much easier on asparagus then at the top of 8' pole beans.

I'd like to try Emerite some time. I've grown Fortex a couple times and enjoyed them but did not get a large yield. I've been growing Rattlesnake most recently and have enough saved seed to last a decade or more.

Here in NH we usually get a light frost around 9/18. If I can protect bush beans with Agribon fabric and a "portable" (by two people) low tunnel, I can get a last harvest of new beans. Last year we didn't get a frost that early and this year I didn't plant the French filet beans so late. They are in blossom right now. Fortex is still producing and the yellow pole beans are just starting. We are in a low lying area that gets frost when our neighbors up the road don't. I forgot to note when I first started picking Fortex this season. I've considered it a great producer.

I have put down Milky Spore several times, the first time at our house in town. We had moles that were tearing up the yard. The Milky Spore did the job on the June beetle grubworms, which was what the moles were after. I noted, the following summer, and for a couple of years after, I and my neighbor to the right and to the left did not have mole damage in our yards while our neighbors across the road did. Nobody around here was having problems with Japanese beetles until just these last five years or so. It is rocky here so we don't usually have much trouble with moles, though I think someone relocated one and we were the lucky recipients because we had the first one we have had out here beginning last month. It has, however, appeared to have moved on now. I have applied Milky Spore twice in the last five years and I did not notice an appreciable difference in the population of beetles. The Japanese beetles tend to arrive in July and they buzz around and bang into things like kamikaze airplanes until the weather begins to cool in late August or early September. We are in a narrow band of zone 6A here and our first average frost is about October 15. Most of Oklahoma is zone 7. We also are in one of those areas that gets frosts when other areas nearby do not.

We have intense heat in July and many times we also have drought. I hesitate to put anything soapy on my plants during this period of time because when the sun bears down it burns the plant. With triple-digit temperatures, combined with wind, most of my garden dies in August. It has been all I have been able to do to keep pepper plants alive until fall. We have not hit 100 yet this year though. I usually start new tomato plants in late July. This year I tried to keep bean plants alive with not very good results. But in years past when I've grown Lazy Housewife, I've already had my harvest by July and then the bean plants go ahead and die. So I have Kwintus (Early Riser) planted as a fall bean and they are doing ok so far. I wish I could find a bean I like that would bear quickly so I could get my harvest in before summer heats up.

Rockwisperer, what kind of dates are you working with, from sowing to heat kill? And what kind of temperatures would you expect during that period? Have you tried Rattlesnake?

"...and harvesting in the dense foliage is difficult."

^^ This. I planted pole beans very close together (3-4 around each pole of teepee trellis) and wow harvesting is a PITA. Less so than bush beans (I'm getting older - too hard to bend down and search for beans), but still - will have to rethink this next year. Also the whiteflies were out of control in the masses of foliage.

Zeedman, I really had my heart set on a long, stringless, greasy bean. Probably not realistic in my locale, I know. But the heart wants what the heart wants.