eBay Guides - Grow a TeePee in the Garden Fun family Project

This is such a great idea, it has to be shared. The Scarlet Runner Bean Vine is not just good beans, not just a beautiful flowering vine, it can also be a teepee that the whole family will enjoy creating! The first thing you need to do, is to decide where you want to put your teepee. You should pick a place that gets lots of full sun and where you can easily get water to your plants. Try not to go any further than you can reach with your water hose. You need to find an area that is around 6 feet by 6 feet.

Step 1
Remove all existing grass, weeds, rocks, and trash from the site. Add 6 inches of compost to the area, and till (or mix) it into the soil. Place bricks, stones, cinder blocks, or some other solid material along the edges of the garden bed. You can take a 2 to 3 foot wide strip of landscape fabric and lay all around the edges of the garden. Cover the fabric with bark mulch. This will help to keep the weeds out of your teepee area and will give you a dry walking and standing area where you can weed and water the teepee. You might also put the landscape fabric inside the teepee to have a clean place to sit.

Step 2
You will need to get 6 10-foot poles (cedar posts, pipe, lumber, or bamboo). Tie the poles together 6 inches from the top with weather proof cording or wire. Put the base of the poles one foot inside the edge of the garden.

Step 3
Wind the string around and between each pole, leaving an opening between 2 poles. (If you don't leave an opening, you won't be able to get inside!)

Step 4
Now comes the planting part! Plant bean seeds at the base of each pole. As the vine grows, train them to grow around the poles and the string. You will need to give them some extra support by tying the vines to the poles - not too tight though!

The best bean for a teepee is the fast-growing Scarlet Runner Bean (which I just happen to sell in my ebay store), with showy red flowers that attract hummingbirds & butterflys. The beans are very frost-tender, so wait to sow seed until 2-3 weeks after the last frost date, when the soil is well-warmed. If the weather is dry, water the soil a few days before planting. Around each pole, sow 4 bean seeds at a depth of 1 inch (. Seeds will take 6-10 days to germinate. When seedlings emerge and start to grow, thin them to 1-2 plants per pole and gently twine them around the poles to get them started climbing.

Keep the soil at the base of the beans regularly watered, but avoid sprinkling overhead. In very hot, sticky summer weather, runner beans are often slow to produce pods, but will resume as the weather cools. Little ones using the bean teepee as a hideout should be gently cautioned about bumping against the vines and damaging them.

Runner beans are ready to harvest in 60-70 days, pods can be up to 8 inches long when mature. They should be picked for eating when they are young and tender. They can be steamed or eaten raw. Provided the beans are picked continuously, the plants will continue to bloom and produce new pods until frost. As the season ends leave the pods on to dry and you'll have beans to plant next year!