bamboo teepees for peas?

Hello,

I'd like to stake my sugar-snap peas using bamboo stakes, in the shape of a teepee. My question is, how many pea plants can one put around each stake? Never grown peas before, but I thought this was a neat idea I heard from my sister.

Thanks!

Michelle

I'd space them 2-3 inches apart, as if you were growing them in a row, so maybe 2 by each stake? I've never tried a teepee, but I have put them in a double row along both sides of a "pea fence" made from a bunch of branches (around 5' long, pruned from our wild cherry trees) stuck into the ground and sort of woven together. Neat idea, especially if you're planning to use the teepees for pole beans after the peas are done.

I have some sugar snaps growing in a container, with a bamboo "teepee". I have 2 plants at the bottom of each bamboo, so that's a total of 6 plants. I'm just now able to harvest my peas, although I usually eat them straight off the plants, and not too many make it inside :) Next year, I'll do several pots of them, as one isn't enough for more than just me. It was more of an experiment to see if I could do it this way. My veggies in containers (sugar snap peas, french-style bush green beans, cherry tomatoes, etc) are doing far better than my veggies in the ground. Next year I plan on doing more.

Thanks for the great info! I am going to plant them in raised beds, hopefully tomorrow.

At 2 per stake, that should give me 12 pea plants. Yum.

Where do you get your bamboo to make the teepee's or are they pre-made? I am in Michigan.

Fancee1945,

Gardeners Supply has bamboo poles. www.gardenerssupply.com

They aren't too expensive and can be used year after year if they are put in storage for the winter. I had some that lasted over 5 years and they were left out in the weather in central California. Dumped them for the move to Idaho and we're starting over with new ones this year.

Judy

Like my sister, chellvankleeck, I am using bamboo teepees for my peas. It seems like they had a hard time grabbing on so I used some twist ties to "encourage" them. Some started to wrap around them, but they really went nuts when I set up my structure for my beans using 8 ft bamboo poles with gardening twine connecting them horizontally. I made kind of a spider web, connecting the 9 bamboo poles with twine first at about 2 feet, then I did the same thing at 4 feet and I'll put in a top layer at 7 feet, although that's mostly for my scarlet runner beans. From the top layer, I'm going to drop down strings for the peas and beans to climb up. This worked really well last year as my peas grew to right around 6ft.

Lowe's and Home Depot carry bamboo poles now too; not sure any higher than 6 ft, though.