How best to use 3 x 2 timber for pea / bean supports

This will be my first year on my plot, so I am keen to do well.

I'll be growing runner beans, climbing French beans, tall Alderman peas as well as Mangetout, which are also tall.

I assumed I would make a double row of 8 ft canes for the beans, but I'm not too sure yet about the peas.

So far I have three options I am considering ..

• Several small 4 cane wigwams along a row
• A similar support as for beans, but with a criss-cross of diagonal canes too ... like a trellis
• Canes with that rigid plastic netting, with holes about 50mm

Now I have been given a bundle of old 3 x 2 timber, which I feel I could use somehow to add extra strength and rigidity, but I'm just not too sure how.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

All (x12) are between 10 and 12 ft (3 - 3.6m)

 

I'm just doing some mental juggling, trying to marry up 3x2 timber, beans, and peas, and can only think of one way they'd marry together. Use the 3x2 to make a pergola with a seat in it, then grow your beans up it perhaps, using strings strung diagonally between the uprights so that the beans have something to get hold of?

I can't think how to fit the peas into the equation. Most varieties of peas (that I've encountered) only grow to about 3ft tall max, although I did once grow some that reached about 5ft. In any case I can't see them competing with runners, and I can't seem to marry up the idea of 3x2 and peas in my head at all.

I'd be tempted to save the 3x2 for a myriad of other jobs you'll no doubt want to do as you go along.

 

That's quite a substantial amount of timber you've been given! I'm very jealous!

Personally (and this is a mad idea) why not create a pergola type walkway with them. Buy a few lengths of 3x3, met post them into the ground and then attach the 2x3 to the top and bottom, then attach canes or wires between the two so the beans can climb up and over the structure.

I did something similar with an old ladder I had (don't have the pics I don't think) but intend to go further with it if I am allowed when I get myself a plot.

 

for my pea's I just use 3ft high chicken wire with short post's at each end and a stout cane every 3ft threaded though the wire.For runner beans I just make wigwams, 8 8ft cane's about 9in's apart round the circle then just tie at the top.

 

Seems like a bit of a waste of the 3x2. I agree with clueless, save the 3x2 and if it were me I would use canes in a wigwam, this is how I grow mine.

Rusty

 

I saw on The Beechgrove garden something similar this morning, for sweet peas, but I am sure this would work for runner beans too.

Now to see if my image will load here ..

 

For my peas I use fence posts in metal ground sockets. The posts have cross pieces about 9" apart and I string wire between these to support pea netting.The wires are handy as they allow me to peg fleece along each side to keep birds and wind off during early stages of growth.
I don't grow grow runner beans but do grow climbing french beans and for these I use poles or canes about 7' or 8' tall with one bamboo cane tied laterally about 4' up to help keep the verticals stable

 

Hi Williebee,thats a good support ,that's how I used to grow mine when I was bit of a showman.What I did was left it in the same place for a number of year and every winter dug out a trench the length and width then put all my waist into the trench(any thing that would rot down)over the winter ,then in spring back fill and when the beans where ready to be planted out a hand full of growmore to the sq meter and in went the plants.