"Companion Plants for Beans

Growing these companion plants around bean plants will be helpful: eggplant and summer savory.

Some plants actually are bad to the health of bean plants. Avoid these plants around beans: Tomatoes, chili peppers, sunflowers, onions, garlic, kale, cabbage, and broccoli."

http://vegetablegardeningideas.com/vegetable-growing-instructions/how-to-grow-beans/

That explains why my beans did so crappy last year. I planted them next to my cayenne peppers. Everything did better last year accept my beans.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Grow Beans

What did it to to the beans? How close where the peppers? Did you have beans further away and how did they do if so? Does anyone else have details on why this is, distance and such?

A better, more complete list of questions would be

1) why pole and bush beans have different enemies (e.g. cabbage is friend of pole beans but an enemy of bush beans)? They are the same plant

2) why some solanaceae (eggplant) are good, while others (toms) are bad for beans?

3) why different lists on the web give conflicting information (for example, cabbage and tomatoes in humeseeds vs gardenguides). are they friends or not?

The companion planting advocates have all sorts of rules such as this and seldom know or can explain the reasoning behind them. Fortunately for most gardeners, who don't follow the Companion Planting School of Thought - at least not consciously - most of their rules don't hold up to actual practice in the garden.

This one is a good example. Hundreds of gardeners routinely plant peppers and beans in their gardens with no problems and have for eons.

Still if you want to understand companion planting rules then its best to post over on the Companion Planting forum here. One of the believers there may better be able to explain the reasons behind this particular rule.

Dave

I planted a similar version of 3 three sisters with the wrong kind of corn. The bean plants were growing in between rows of corn with vines like cucumbers growing near them, two rows of corn, planted in between them, but the cayenne peppers next to the corn.

Maybe just a bad year for beans mostly because the bunnies kept eating them. They did bad all over the yard, not just near the squash, but even the lima beans, that do well regardless of how bad things are, did bad and they were the ones planted in between the corn, next to the cayenne pepper.

"but even the lima beans, that do well regardless of how bad things are, did bad and they were the ones planted in between the corn"

My experience is that lima beans need sun, sun, and more sun, so I guess your corn shaded the limas, and therefore your limas did poorly. Just a suggestion.

scarletdaisies, I almost did the 3 sisters thing myself. Two things changed. One was that I found out that the variety of corn I was growing would not have a strong enough or tall enough stalk to work. The indians used different, older, taller and stronger varieties. I also came to the conclusion that I was giving up a lot or real estate to corn and shorting myself on things I want more of that also cost me more to buy.

I am partly concerned because my original layout put the closest hot pepper about 18 inches from one of the poles in my pole bean tepee. Those would be poblano peppers, the mildest of what I am growing this year. Then comes my cayenne and then thai hots. The closest of my bush beans would be about 2 feet or so from another poblano.

digdirt, I didn't realize there was a dedicated forum around. Thanks for the tip.