Hi Lazygardens, Wow!!! Ur garden pics are just awesome. My tomatoes are growing fast. they r nearly 10" in height, with flowers just starting to bloom. My eggplant are the light green, round 3" diameter and 6" length variety (Indian), it is 6" high with flowers just starting to bloom. My okra are having 2 true set of leaves... :) My drip system for the veggies is not set as yet, so I hose water them twice a day for 10 minutes by hand. So is the watering enough? Please do let me know coz I really want my plants to grow healthy. This weekend we will be installing the soaker hose for the veggie plants. Is 10 minutes on the timer, set twice daily too much or too little? Any advice would be of great help. I live in Ocotillo/Gilbert, Chandler. Padma

Arlen, I am also growing the scarlet runners as perennials, however this will be my first year. I will do what I do with all my other perennial crops, prune it drastically, keep watering it but otherwise ignore it until it comes back in the spring. I plan on keeping seed and sending it to some folks in the Bay Area, I think San Francisco would have and ideal climate for runner beans, always cool or mild, but never cold or hot. So I have been pondering this question, and I went out and checked how my pole beans were climbing. Al the P. vulgaris are climbing counter clock wise. That would be Garafal oro, Kentucky wonder, Purple peacock. The scarlet runner is also climbing counter clock wise. The pole limas (P lunatus) is also climbing counter clock wise (all these are bird's eye view). I have Carolina limas and Christmas limas planted so far. I also have a pole cow pea (yard long), that is yet another species, but it still has not figured out how to climb. I think they are too cold, hopefully it will warm up soon. I suspect it will be the same though....

I grew Red Peanut, here in OK, two seasons ago. It made a compact bush with twining, 3' runners. Upon seeing how they twined I gave them some support, but they did not climb. Perhaps they would have if provided support earlier. I once received seed of a family heirloom bean, from the very family who had raised it for about 40 years. They always grew it as a half runner. But when I gave it support it easily reached 10-12 feet. I greatly prefer to grow it as a pole bean, myself. Penny Rile cowpea is noted for being of less vigorous, vining growth than many other varieties. When I give it support it tops 10'. I grow it both ways. George Tahlequah, OK

One pole(climbing vine) beans that I lik best is "Hyasinth". It starts flowering and producing beans from June till November(right now). It flowers and grows beans non-stop, and attracts bees. What is more is that it has the most beautiful fragrant purple flowers and beans. The beans can be harvested young or left to mature. The color and cluster of the beans also are very pretty. It is perhaps better than some mail box flowers or morning glories(which do not have fruits and the flowers are closed most of the time). This past summer I had another pole beans (orange color), Cypress vine, morning glories, passiflora Incarnata, all climbing on the same arch. I have been most happy with Hyasinth beans than the rest combined. I will not plant Cypress vine next year, although I have so much seeds of it. The passiflora will grow back and I will just plant Hyasinth Pole beans and maybe two wild morning glories(non-lobed leaves), which are much pretier than cultivated ones and flowers grow as a bunch. Back to climbing beans: My all time favorite:Hyasinth.