Bean Teepee: Build a Fun Vegetable Hut with the Family

The vegetable garden is a passion we’d love to share and pass on to our children and grandchildren, but it’s not always easy to get budding gardeners involved! So, with a bit of ingenuity, we need to find ways to blend play with gardening! The climbing bean teepee is both a place for fun and cultivation, as well as a playful activity to enjoy as a family. Discover our step-by-step tutorial and create this lovely bean hut with your young shoots!

Climbing bean teepee

Why create a climbing bean teepee?

A climbing bean hut allows you to utilise vertical space, saving room in the vegetable garden. Especially if this hut is planted in the middle of the short grass meadow! You’ll create an additional growing area as well as a play zone. Inside their teepee, children can observe each stage of the bean’s growth: germination, shoot development, flowering, and fruiting. A wonderful way to awaken (and amaze) their sense of nature. I can guarantee they’ll also take great pleasure in harvesting! Plus, building the hut is very playful and helps children develop imagination, planning, and motor skills. Not to mention it’s a delightful family activity, so why miss out?

Which varieties of beans should you choose?

To cover your teepee from top to bottom, opt for climbing beans that reach at least 2m in height. Here’s a selection of our favourite varieties:

The climbing shelling bean Maïs type Tarbais offers the option to enjoy the immature green pod as a mangetout or the white seeds, perfect for cassoulet. For organic options, there’s also the climbing shelling bean Soissons vert.
If you prefer mangetout climbing beans, you can choose between the climbing bean Algarve (flat pod), which is highly productive and stringless, or the Mistica variety, which is very hardy.
If you love butter-coloured mangetout climbing beans, the Merveille de Venise (or Or du Rhin) variety is perfect for your teepee.
To add a touch of purple to your garden, choose the stringless purple-podded mangetout climbing beans or the Carminat climbing mangetout beans.
The organic shelling variety Langue de Feu 2 stands out with its striking carmine-red pods marbled with cream, enclosing beautiful white seeds.
For slender, extra-long beans, the yardlong bean variety (Vigna sesquipedalis) will charm you with its flavour, a cross between beans and asparagus.
The Montebello climbing variety produces tender green fillet-type pods.

What else can you plant?

You can choose to plant other climbing vegetable seeds or even mix them together. For example, butternut, spaghetti, and potimarron squashes can climb up to 1.5m on the teepee. They’ll need guidance, but it’s great fun to see the squashes hanging like chandeliers inside the hut.

You can also sow climbing peas, which can reach 1.5m to 2m in height, such as the organic climbing pea variety Blauwschokker (Capucine pea) with its purple pods, or the climbing pea Roi des conserves, a green and highly productive round-seeded variety.

For edible flowers, nasturtiums will easily climb the teepee, covering it with lush green foliage and vibrant blooms.

Climbing beans, nasturtiums, and squashes make great climbers!

What materials do you need?

10 bamboo sticks or tree branches, each 2m long. Tip: You can ask for branches from a local tree pruning or landscaping company.
Garden twine
Climbing bean seeds
Your planting tools: spade, hoe, rake, claw... and a watering can
Scissors

Steps to build your climbing bean teepee

1- Choose a sunny spot
2- Mark a 1.2m diameter circle on the ground
3- If placing the teepee in your short grass meadow: remove the grass in a 10cm-wide strip around the circle except at the entrance. Loosen the soil (or simply aerate it with a broadfork)
4- Use a hoe to create a 3cm-deep furrow along the circle
5- Water the furrow generously with rainwater.
6- Place a seed every 3 to 5cm
7- Cover with soil and firm it down to ensure good seed-to-soil contact. Add compost if needed.
8- Water again
9- Arrange your sticks around the outside of the circle, leaving more space between the two sticks forming the teepee entrance.
10- Push the sticks 5 to 10cm into the ground to secure them.
11- Tie the tops of the sticks together with twine
12- Connect the sticks horizontally with twine, spacing it every 15cm up the height of the teepee. This will help the beans climb easily.
13- Keep the soil moist until germination. You can lightly mulch (less than 5cm) to prevent rapid drying.