Top Crops - Beans

I bought one of those cheap arch frames from the garden centre and planted it in 2 large pots (each is about 40cm x 40cm) - and it frames one of our windows.

I'm growing the bean plants indoors at the moment - a mixture of black french beans, green french beans and some runners. By mid June it should look lovely with a thick covering of green leaf and lovely purple, white and red flowers. Will plant the plants outside in the next couple of weeks. I usually put about 8 plants in each pot and put some seeds in at the same time to get a longer harvest.

I think beans are my favourite pot crop, they look nice, the beans taste delicious and the more you pick the more beans appear!

The pic on the right is from June the first year I grew them to give you an idea how it looks. I've put more plants in in subsequent years to make the coverage thicker (and the crop better of course!)

If you have a bit of ground space, or maybe even a raised bed, you could easily make a 'bean teepee' the kids can hide in. There's a step by step at http://www.kiddiegardens.com/bean_teepee.html

You could even make a teepee by planting the poles in containers in a circle shape, but I guess it might not be very stable and one rough kids game could send it tumbling...