I may have gone a little wild sowing green beans. I count 14 individual plants across a ~2ft row.
I have more trellises and am not worried about them climbing or running horizontally, but will there be too much competition in the raised bed?
by lurker_343
15 Comments
You don’t need to thin beans. They actually like to grow in blocks.
Let them go, they will be fine! Just have a plan for what to do with the harvest (which is never the part I remember when Im planting so exuberantly…)
Depends. What spacing does the variety need, soil condition, etc. Square Foot Gardening (which does rely on a specific mix of soil nutrients, technically) says 8 per square foot. I haven’t kept up my SFG soil closely. But I still plant pretty densely. Plus every gardener ignores spacing to some degree. I’d probably leave them as is. But keep an eye. If some don’t look like they’re growing, figure out who the competition is and keep the strongest.
I’d leave them. I’ve had even more tightly planted beans than this and they produced just fine
What kind of beans?
They can get very large and produce a lot if given the space. I would do one per box so they don’t eat the basil. I grow a few with much more space and drown in beans.
Thin! I let mine go one year cause I get sad about wasting plants. I had nothing but regrets. They almost collapsed my trellis from the weight. Now I take a deep breath and thin.
Mine are very close and no plans to thin. Also have a row of bush beans in mine. Let them live their cozy lives! 😆
I plant pole beans 2″ apart and bush beans 4″ apart.
So, using a 2′ trellis, I will fit 24 pole beans in a 2×1 space. They seem to have no problem growing that way.
I grow nine plants in a square foot with no issues. You’re fine!
https://preview.redd.it/k8xkok89gg0f1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c44763f5068081aabc87afddaeb5e2810c6ba7ca
Green beans on the right, cukes on the left. What variety did you plant? You should be just fine. I plant mine with 3 fingers wide spacing.
May I ask, what are you gunna do with all those beans, basil, and mint? I feel like 1 mint n 1 basil is enough. Unless you’re into pesto.
Let them do their thing. I didn’t thin and almost wish I’d planted more. The slugs got my blue lake bean sprouts but the scarlet runners managed to outgrow the pests.
https://preview.redd.it/opjlzeq3og0f1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86a61818b479abea1f3b2170475a99f8f3aab360
Are they bush or pole beans? I’m assuming pole, since you have a trellis.
I only grow pole beans. I plant mine 8″ apart, and then after a few weeks, I direct sew in between, so the final spacing is 4″ apart. I stagger planting so I don’t end up with a deluge of green beans all at the same time.
I love planting green beans because their germination rate is near 100%.
Beans, in my experience, don’t need much thinning. I squeeze them real tight in between my rows of corn.