The beanpole wigwam

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 clever ways to combine play with gardening! A beanpole teepee is both a fun space, a growing area, and a delightful family activity. Discover our step-by-step tutorial and create this charming bean hut with your little sprouts!

Beanpole teepee

Why create a beanpole teepee?

A beanpole hut makes use of vertical space, saving room in the vegetable garden. Especially if this hut is planted right in the middle of the lawn! You'll create an extra growing area as well as a play zone. Inside their teepee, children can observe each stage of the beans' growth: germination, sprouting, 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 highly engaging and helps children develop imagination, planning skills, and motor coordination. Not to mention it's a lovely family bonding moment, so why miss out?

Which bean varieties to 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 favourites:

The Maïs Tarbais-type shelling bean can be eaten as immature green pods like mangetout or as white seeds perfect for cassoulet. For organic options, try the Soissons Vert shelling bean.
If you prefer mangetout climbing beans, choose between the Algarve (flat-podded) bean , highly productive and stringless, or the Mistica variety, known for its hardiness.
For butter-yellow mangetout beans, Merveille de Venise (or Or du Rhin) is ideal for your teepee.
To add a purple touch to your garden, pick stringless purple-podded mangetout beans or the Carminat mangetout bean.
The organic shelling Langue de Feu 2 stands out with its striking carmine-red pods marbled with cream, yielding beautiful white beans.
For slender, extra-long beans, yardlong beans (Vigna sesquipedalis) offer a flavour halfway between beans and asparagus.
The Montebello variety produces tender green filet-type pods.

What else can you plant?

You can choose 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 guiding, but it’s great fun to see squashes dangling like chandeliers inside the hut.

You could also sow climbing peas reaching 1.5m to 2m tall, such as the organic Blauwschokker (Capucine pea) with its purple pods, or the highly productive Roi des Conserves round-seeded pea.

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 canes or tree branches, 2m long. Tip: ask for branches from local tree surgeons or green space maintenance companies.
Garden twine
Climbing bean seeds
Planting tools: spade, hoe, rake, hand fork... and a watering can
Scissors

Steps to build your beanpole teepee

1- Choose a sunny spot
2- Mark a 1.2m diameter circle on the ground
3- If placing the teepee on the lawn: remove grass in a 10cm-wide strip around the circle except at the entrance. Loosen the soil (or simply aerate with a broadfork)
4- Use a hoe to make a 3cm-deep trench along the circle
5- Water the trench thoroughly with rainwater.
6- Place seeds every 3-5cm
7- Cover with soil and firm down to ensure good seed-to-soil contact. Add compost if needed.
8- Water again
9- Arrange poles around the outside, leaving more space between the two entrance poles.
10- Push poles 5-10cm into the ground to stabilise them.
11- Tie the tops together with twine
12- Connect poles horizontally with twine every 15cm up the teepee for beans to climb easily.
13- Keep soil moist until germination. A light mulch (<5cm) helps retain moisture.