Agricola Urbanus - My Interest in Beans and Tomatoes

There are a few things I consider pretty important in a garden.  One of the foremost is that it should give me food I like.  Preferably it should give a lot of that food in a minimal amount of space.  Zucchini?  No thanks.  Great yield.  I don't like it.  Won't grow it.  It would be nice to think plants would water themselves and take care of themselves, but that's too much to hope.

If we have to take care of something though let's look at green beans.  Specifically, pole beans.  As opposed to bush beans, pole beans tend to have high yields.  It's also common to be able to pick pole beans while standing fairly upright.  A 100 foot row of pole beans will normally yield about 150 pounds of beans.  Of course, you can have multiple shorter rows as well :).  They need water, sunshine, and some poles they can climb up.

Our family also likes tomatoes.  We aren't fond of slices of tomato but we like spaghetti and other foods that use a good deal of tomato sauce.  Roma tomatoes tend to be fairly small, dense tomatoes which don't have a lot of water to cook off before you have sauce.  The plants can be planted 16-18" apart with supporting poles or cages to keep them upright.  Tomato plants especially like lots of sunshine.

Tomatoes and beans?  Writing about this in January makes me look forward to July. 

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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com and http://alex-kirk.blogspot.com