Hog fence panel experiment

I have a bunch of hog fence panels (48"x 16').

Since it hurts too much squatting down or bending over while picking beans, figured I'd try this experiment.

Come springtime I plan to take one panel and bend it at 90 degrees 6 feet from each end. Kinda like an inverted "U". That would leave me with a 4 foot wide center.

I like White Half-Runner beans. My thinking is....if I plant the beans along the outside edge and inside edge of the inverted "U" shaped trellis is that they will all grow at the same pace until the ones one the outside edges get more sun and grow faster than the beans planted on the inside edges. Thus, the beans on the inside edges should begin to shoot 'runners' trying to search for more light. Therefore, the plants on the inside will grow higher and hopefully cover the top of the 6 foot tall 'trellis'.

The 4 foot wide opening inside the trellis should still give me room to run the tiller to keep weed control down.

I'm thinking this should make picking the beans much easier. Just walk through the tunnel and outside edges and pick the beans without having to do a lot of stooping and bending.

I also plan to use another hog panel, of the same size, only placed perpendicular to the ground....16' long and 48" high.

Then I will weigh the amount of beans produced from both arraignments to see which produces more beans.

I have always planted my half-runners in rows and will do so again this spring. I just hate all the stooping, crawling and bending it takes to pick them.

So, with this experiment, I'm hoping to be able to harvest the same amount(or close to it) of beans as did with just planting in rows. Only, this time, I won't have to stoop, crawl or bend as much.

Anyone tried this or have thoughts/ideas on this scenario?

I do that same thing with hog panels. Only difference is I cut mine in 8' sections or in half and hooked the tops together with zip ties. Works good for picking the beans but the vines keep growing and want to keep going higher.
Sure makes picking a lot easier. I might try your idea of bending some and see how that works too. I like your idea as it would make it a lot easier walking down the center.

Use the fence panels mounted on steel fence posts and let the tomatoes grow up the fence. Works great.

We do just that with the panels.

Just bend them in a U the long way, and put a "T" post on each side. Then we plant Blue Lake Stringless beans on BOTH sides of the fence pieces, so, there would be essentially 2 rows of beans on each "half" of the U.

Works VERY well! The plants shoot for the top, and max out right at the peak of the U, then all the beans hang down inside...

Would get you a picture of the racks tomorrow if you would like? They are set up in a bed waiting for spring!

Bryce

My wife wants me to build a couple trellis-hoop house units similar to what you have in mind for her 4H community garden to make it easy for the kids to harvest cucumbers and tomatoes. Below is a link with a plan to build them I think is neat. Not sure if I will use the angle iron base....may just set some cedar 4x4 posts about 6 inches above the ground with a 4x4 plate on the posts for a base.
cattle panel trellis

I have for more then a decade now used 20 foot pieces of PVC pipe and made an arch then put hog wire over that and grown pole beans that way. Easy pick and you do so in the shade of the bean plants. Gave I do not know how many gal. of beans away again this summer

We use the hog panels for our peas to grow up on. Don't have a problem with beans because we grow and like Tenderettes better. bush bean with no strings to mess with. Good bearers too. Just my thoughts, Keith

Bryce, we prefer Blue Lake stringless beans for canning and eating. I plant the bush type and they do not grow very tall. What type do you grow that climb the trellis? I assume there is a climbing variety?
I would like to see photos if you could do that. My wife and I both have problems with our backs and find picking the bush type very difficult.
We were going to change to a different variety for trellising but would prefer to stay with Blue Lake.
Richard in NW SC

Back when we had a big garden there were 2 ways we use to plant beans like this. One was to drive steel posts about 10' apart in the row and put baling twine every 6" up the post to the top. At the end of the year cut the twine off ball it up and toss it in the burn pile or the trash.

The second way was to plant sweet corn in 40"+ rows and come back in later (after the corn is about a foot tall) and plant the beans between the corn stocks and let them grow up together. Both ways work good and make picking the beans a lot easer. The problem with the hog panels is the clean up at the end of the year. You don't want to burn the vines off but it takes some time pull them off the panel. The problem you will find is the higher the beans grow the higher beans don't fill right and don't get real big, But if there watered more often this may make a difference. Bandit

Tomatoes and cucumbers. Thats the way my grandad did it. String a row of cattle panels in his garden. Half tomatoes the other half was his cukes.

I do it sorta like you... Install post and run wire about a 18" off the ground length of the row then make a run near the top... I then cut twine and drop it from the top to each plant... At the lower wire loop it over it one time... The plant will run up it

When it comes time to take it down at one end pull the wire out and save it for next year... I pull the plant out of the ground and dispose of it twine and all...

Sounds like a good way to put the bunch of old panels to use. What we always did was just put up some stock fence on a few T posts. At the end of the season just pull up the posts and roll the fence up.

Why bend them? Just drive 3 steel posts, wire the panel to them and plant on both sides, worked this way for years.

To be honest with you, I am not all that sure.

My responisbilites in the garden end when the brute work is done! I haul manure, dirt, chip, run the roto tiller, and do all the digging of potatoes and carrots.

She cuts these beans up and pressure cans them all summer long, and they are AWESOME for 3 or 4 years, maybe more!

I am sure that I have pictures of the racks, maybe not of the beans....

Also, another thing to consider is that we have been saving our seeds for 20 years, so they may not be around anymore...

These ones WILL go all the way to the top, and I can walk under neat one of those panels, so maybe 7 feet?

I'll see what I can come up with....

Bryce

I think making it into an experiment makes it kind of fun. I think it would be better yet if you kept a photo diary of it and posted on here a couple times a month to show progress/photos. I know I would follow it.

Haft runners and butter beans strung up



Cucumbers on a type of heavy concrete wire for bridge pilings that's sorta like hog wire...

i use cattle panels in the garden, use em on tomaters, cukes, and snap peas. work good.

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cukes can get out of hand tho........got into the zuchinni

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