Square Foot Gardening and Runner Beans

[rdak]

I have recently bought the Square Foot Gardening book and prepared a 3 foot x 6 foot bed. The planting spacings are very much closer in SFG, justified in the book by the fact that the growing medium is very enriched and the fact that traditional spacings are based on agriculture and having to get in to weed- which you can do in SFG without stepping on the soil. I am keeping an open mind and seeing what results I get, but what I'm having trouble with is the recommended spacings for Runner Beans- in each sqaure foot, you are advised to plant 8 beans- which means the 3 foot x 1 foot space I have allocated at the end of the bed should have 24 runner bean plants!! Surely this is way too many...?! Has anyone tried Runners in SFG?

[rdak]

[Multiveg]

I think SFG may have been referring to french beans. I have come to the conclusion that pole beans are the climbing french beans. The spacing they suggest is more consistent - Hessayon has them 4 inches apart, whereas runners are 9 inches apart.
Sweetcorn is 18 inches apart standard, and foot apart in SFC, you could try growing no more than 4 runners per square foot.

[rdak]

ahhh- maybe that was my mistake..I assumed Pole Beans meant Runner Beans! thanks!

[Multiveg]

Hessayon, in his brief intro to beans, has both climbing french and climbing runners as pole beans.... ::)

[Garden Manager]

Purely by accident i have come to use a similar planting philosophy on the veg plot as in SFG. That is by planting in beds you can plant closer together than in traditional rows. Call it block planting or square foot gardening it seems to work and doesnt 'arf save space!

I usualy follow the books for spacing the plants within a 'row' but then use that same distance between 'rows' so i end up with a grid of plants rather than neatly spaced rows in the traditional sense. Basicaly as long as you leave enough room for the plants to grow to harvesting size without them competing with each other for light and water then you can dispense with 'rulebook'/traditional spacings

[tim]

Pole, commercially, always used to be runners, but french now seem to have joined the club. = Tim