Yes we use brown cardboard in the bottom of our trench too, torn up paper potato sacks, newspaper, whatever, then loads of half-made garden compost ... if there's space in the garden we eve start the trench off in the autumn/winter and instead of tipping potato peelings, sprout leaves, cabbage outer leaves, apple cores etc on the compost we just tip them straight into the trench ... then when we're getting ready to plant our beans out we fill the trench to the top with water and let it soak away ... then we backfill with the soil, putting a few tubes made out of plastic pipe/plastic bottles with the bottoms removed etc into the soil with the ends sticking out so that we can stick the hose pipe in the 'pipes' throughout the summer and keep that sump of 'compost' nice and wet for the bean roots.
We used to grow ours in a circle, but nowadays we grow a few more so a double row works better for us.
We move the trench each year and that way a fresh area of garden is improved every year ... it works really well to plant courgettes/squashes where the beans were the previous year as they need lots of organic matter in the soil and good moisture retention too.
Hope that helps
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Excellent. I put all my garden and kitchen vegetable waste under my cardboard and then top with manure. It’s then left all winter open to the elements. I’ll try your method sounds good
If we have any well-rotted manure we mix a bit (not a lot) into the trench with the other stuff before planting... if not we just use Fish, Blood and Bone, or General Growmore.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It’s very confusing. The rest of my veg are doing well with the addition of old manure. Love runner beans but don’t hold much hope of having a good crop ☹️
Well rotted manure is fine for beans … as part of a mix.
Just keep watering your beans and spraying or misting the flowers (if you’re allowed). There’s plenty of time got a good crop yet … I usually don’t expect mine to peak until mid August. I sowed earlier than usual this year.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Anything that will absorb water when available for plants to use later is perfectly OK. I'd prefer newsprint but, if you can source enough cardboard, by all means use that. I attach a midway pic of my set up that is currently in its tenth year and much cheaper than canes.
On the whole I would agree with @raisingirl … and yet we have had the earliest and best crop ever and are almost considering buying another freezer … but we sowed a bit earlier than we usually do, and used a self-fertile variety so aren’t having the pollination problems that can occur in very dry periods.
😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Posts
We used to grow ours in a circle, but nowadays we grow a few more so a double row works better for us.
We move the trench each year and that way a fresh area of garden is improved every year ... it works really well to plant courgettes/squashes where the beans were the previous year as they need lots of organic matter in the soil and good moisture retention too.
Hope that helps
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.