an idea (green beans & sunflowers)

[annastasia76]

I don't know if this would work so if it won't please let me know before I get around to trying it.

I know about the 3 sisters of growing green beans on corn stalks but I was wondering if you can grow them on tall sunflower stalks. I love sunflowers and grow them anyways, it would be a plus if I can have green beans or something growing on them also, do you think this would work??

[!potatoes!]

had some of my vining cowpeas climb sunflowers last year, it worked great. as with the three sisters, timing the different planting times would be your main concern. you'll want the sunflowers to have some height before the beans start wanting to climb.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Yes, I agree with !potatoes! timing.

Beans grow rather fast and could over take the sunflowers. How long do sunflowers take to reach full height? Can you wait this long before planting beans?


Eric

[annastasia76]

that's the problem, usually my sunflowers are about 12" tall by now and full length by mid may if not sooner but the birds kept digging up the seeds so I am starting them in pots, if it won't work this year it's an idea for next year if I get my sunflowers started early enough.

I don't know what's with the birds this year they have been pulling my sunflowers and beans as soon as they start emerging.

[Bobberman]

Plant the climbing beans a foot away from the sunflowers since the sunflower has a inhibitor in its roots that deter groth of plants close to it! I have grow beans up the sunflowers for many years and the ones last year really produced for a long time 5 feet up the sunflowers! Cut the lower leaves so that they have part of ther branch but no leaf! The beans will climb up and some of the shade from the upper leaves will will shade the beans. Black ants lover sunflower leaves if you look at the under side of the leaf you will see lots of ants. They don't seem to hurt anything!

[jal_ut]

Sunflowers are said to be allelopathic to other broad leaved plants.

I know, big word. If you have never heard of this, Google "allellopathy of sunflowers".

In a nutshell it means that the sunflower produces some toxin that inhibits the growth of other broad leaved plants. Just how much or how serious this is, I don't know. Any way, it will be an interesting research project for you.

I have heard it is good to follow sunflowers with corn. The sunflowers supposedly inhibit broad leaved weeds, but have no affect on corn or grass.

Fact or fiction? There is some interesting reading on the internet about the subject.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy]Click Me[/url]

[applestar]

In my experience, sunflower stalks are too thick for beans to wind around properly and need to be helped along. Also, some sunflowers are not sturdy enough to support the more vigorous pole beans. Last year, I grew California #5 Black-eyed peas. I'm pretty sure those are too rampant to be supported by sunflowers either.

[Bobberman]

Last year I had a sunflower with 42 flowers and was 8 feet high. They are sturdy till it rains and the wind blows. The strong wind broke it because the ruts pulled away from the ground because of the wind and I was seeing more blooms at the time. I suggest if you have a nice sunflower or several tie them together and also put a few peg in with stings to hold them! You can even run the beans up the strings. The cutting of the lower leaves do give the beans a place to grab since the stocks are thick like Apple says! I had a sunflower last year that itook the bottom 3 feet of leaves off completely and tie a tomato plant to it and added a tomato post to also support both of them! The sunflower shaded the tomato enough to protect it some!