Unfortunately I haven't really received an answer to my question. I plan to space them how far apart each plant should be spaced. OK. I would prefer to use a window box, so however many gallons the thing has to be to plant 4 green bean plants without overcrowding them, please specify the dimensions of the window box and what size it has to be in gallons. 6" deep, 6" long and 6" wide. I assume since I'll be planting 4 bush green bean plants and this is how many I want in a container without overcrowding them after I thin them, that I should plant double the amount of seeds with the number of plants I plan to grow since I'll be thinning them out to the strongest plants later? First, the idea of thinning to leave just the strongest plants is silly. What criteria determines which plant is strongest? Sometimes the little weaklings go on to do impressive things once they reach their stride, and the rapid growers peter out and become weak, but I digress. If you will only be planting 4 bush bean plants it isn't really worth your time. You will, at best, get 1-2 light side meals from that amount. Bush beans are usually planted with 3-6" spacing. Root system crowding/competition is pretty much never a limiting factor for them, instead sunlight exposure is. If you plant them too densely the ones in the middle shaded by the sunny side ones become the primary limiting factor. In a container you have the luxury of rotating it for sun exposure so you can plant a little more densely than in the ground. In a trough style container you can go even more dense since the mass of leaves is only as wide and the narrow container. If it were me and I was using a container 30" long by 6" wide by 6" deep I would place 20 bush bean plants into that space. That's 3" per plant. I would also fertilize with a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer such as Miracle Grow 24-8-16. Don't count on the myth of beans/legumes using atmospheric nitrogen when growing in containers. Heck, half the time you can't even count on it when growing in the ground. With a trough shaped container this amounts to 2 rows of beans and I would rotate the container every day or every other day to get both sides adequate light.

I really don't know. I will try to guesstimate based on last years bush beans (Strike variety). I had a 2'x10' area planted with approx 6" spacing and I would pick (or try to persuade my wife to pick ;) them every other day. Rarely happened. Probably more like every 3-4 days. Anyway, I would say a picking was enough to fill two 1 gallon freezer bags. I couldn't tell you about any site that compares yields. I can tell you that Strike impressed me as it produced longer than any bush variety I have tried previously. Almost seemed like they thought they were pole beans.

Welcome to Arizona gardening. Its not required but recommended that your tomatoes either get afternoon shade or be protected from the afternoon sun with 50% shade cloth. I'm not sure how many bean plants you will need. I have not been as successful with them as some other members have been. I started a thread about tomatoes in the tomato forum that may be of help to you. The link is below. Peppers grow well here but do better with afternoon shade. From time to time a farmer will stop by and say they grow in Arizona without shade or shade cloth. Farming is different than vegetable gardening though. I drive by some farms on occasion that are not far from my home. Each time I do the temps drop as much as 5-10 degrees, sometimes more at night. A field full of peppers or tomatoes is evaporating massive amounts of water over a large area which drops the temperature and increases relative humidity. In my garden I can have 8 percent relative humidity at 110 degrees with a 15 mile an hour wind speed. At the same time in the farmers field its 99 degrees with 50 percent humidity with a 15 mile an hour wind. That dryer wind in the home garden in full afternoon sun can suck the life out of a plant. My main crops are squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a few melons during the summer. If you click on the photo it will take you to my photobucket page where you can see more pictures. Here is a link that might be useful: What varieties will continue to produce through hot weather?

While I grow a lot of soybeans, I confess that I have never tried them in containers. However, a healthy plant takes up about as much space as a bush bean. The 6" spacing cited by Ikea will produce bushy plants. It's also woth noting that the healthier the plant, the greater number of pods with 2-3 beans... if spaced too closely, you will get a higher percentage of single-seeded "pollywogs". Since soybeans have large root systems, my recommendation would be to allow about a gallon of soil for each plant. There are 231 cubic inches to a gallon. As a frame of reference, at 6" X 6" X 6" depth, the root area per plant at Ikea's spacing would be 216 cubic inches. If the depth of soil in the pot cited above is 5", you would have about 300 cubic inches... so for best results, I would recommend one or two plants only.