interplanting sunflowers and bean vines

[ljgeoff]

I've been reading a ton of gardening articles today, and thought that this one was interesting.

From Steve Mann at SauveYards.com

"You can grow beans up sunflowers, it is a misconception that sunflowers are toxic to beans. The sunflower stems act as a natural trellis for the beans, providing support to them whilst they grow. Plant your beans around a fortnight after you sow your sunflowers and the two should grow well together."

He gives two methods, first, plant your sunflowers and, about three weeks later, plant your bean about a foot from the sunflower. If needed, you can bring trendles from the bean to help in climb up the sunflower.

Method two is the one I want to try:

"Now this isn’t my method, so I must give kudos to John Yeoman from the Kitchen Garden forum for this, but it seems logical and I am sure it would work just as well.

He suggests putting an empty cola in the soil beside your sunflower when you plant it.

Then when your sunflower reaches three feet tall or so simply pull out the can and replace it with a bean transplant. This avoids disturbing the sunflower roots.

As an alternative to this, he also suggests placing two cans in the soil next to the sunflower and adjacent to the bean.

One of the cans should be perforated at the sides and base and kept filled with water. This ensures both plant’s roots get the water they need.

This second method also seems like a good option to me and one I might just give a try next year."

Me too!

Comments

[redbird]

This is the first I'd heard that some people mistakenly thought sunflowers would harm beans.

I know there are some kinds of plant that can be harmful to any other kind of plant growing too close to them, oaks being a well-known example, but not that sort of specificity.

[pameladean]

There is an amazing number of allelopathic plants -- sunflowers in fact are among them -- and you can get lists of plants that do and don't thrive with all of them. Apparently also some sunflowers produce a lot more toxins than others; the article I read suggested getting these ones for their herbicidal properties, but of course one could go in the other direction and choose the less devastating varieties.

P.

[redbird]

Thanks.

It’s the kind of afternoon where “I learned something new” is a bright spot among the drab.

[pameladean]

<3 I was typing away and thought, Does Redbird really need this lecture? and then thought, No, it's okay, she will like getting the information and understand I wasn't trying to be annoying.

P.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Oaks are among the plants that have their own community of associates and don't want outsiders joining. It's more like redlining than a ban. You can get lists of oak associates by searching "soft landing" for caterpillars, because oaks host thousands of other species most of which are lepidoptera.

Re: Yes ...

[redbird]

The broad-brush warnings I’ve seen are against things like mulching with that huge pile of oak leaves.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That advice applies to high-tannin leaves in general. However, they are good for mulching oaks and their companions, based on local forest types such as oak-hickory or oak-basswood. Where you may run into trouble is with sweet leaved trees such as maples or fruit trees.

But eh, my yard's canopy is mostly black walnut, hackberry, mulberry, and maple with one mature sycamore and one mature oak and some much younger oaks I'm raising. It gets along fine. I rake up whatever leaves there are and heap them over the flowerbeds in fall, but I remove them in spring.

[ljgeoff]

I think that, instead of using a perforated can for watering, I'll make little swail-holes: dig a hole and fill it with rocky sand.

[elainegrey]

I am growing thicket beans -- a wild native bean related to kidney beans -- on cutleaf coneflower and sunchokes.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> "You can grow beans up sunflowers, it is a misconception that sunflowers are toxic to beans. <<

Also works with various other vining crops. In addition to seed-growing sunflowers, you can also grow sunchokes which have tiny flowers but edible tubers.

Note that this requires sunflowers with sturdy stems. Many modern cultivers are on the flimsy side. But gray-striped sunflowers run thick, and all the native landraces I've tried were also thick.

>>Then when your sunflower reaches three feet tall or so simply pull out the can and replace it with a bean transplant. This avoids disturbing the sunflower roots.<<

Clever!