bean teepee...wider than a mile

For some reason whenever a phrase has enough syllables to fit into the refrain of Moon River, that song pops into my head. Like this: "Bean TEE-PEE...wider than a mile..." or this: "RumSHPRINGA...wider than a mile..." or this "ChinCHILLA...wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style, someday..." (Merci, Mancini!)

So to get back to my lovely friend, Hausfrau's, request to hear more about my bean teepee, I though I'd write a bit about that today.

So essentially I looked at a couple of pictures in Rodale's, bought some bamboo poles, and got started. That was the essence of my prep.

So I decided I'm going to start every sentence with so...

So I took three poles, banged them about 8" to a foot into loosened soil:


Then I wrapped the entire thing in kite string to give the beans more places to crawl:


Top:


Bottom:



Inside:



This is after I first planted everything around April 20 or so. You can see the tiny little tomatoes inside their cages in some of the pictures and one larger one that was a transplant (the rest were seed starts). I'll have to post updated pictures later this weekend because now the plants are seriously tall.

This is in our front yard and my partner and neighbor are convinced that most of the tomatoes will end up stolen or smashed on cars and houses. I certainly hope not. That would be discouraging. I'm trying to think of ways to deter people from taking them and have come up with netting or some sort of cheap baling wire fencing. We have a motion sensor flood light that should take care of night time vandals, but I don't know about the daytime. I'm tempted to put up a sign that says "Please ask first" but that might just be inviting trouble. Thoughts would be appreciated! I'll post new pictures soon.