It may also depend on how they're supported. For my planting, peas and pole beans are all trellised. Peas are usually 1-2 inch apart, and pole beans 2-4 inch apart on one side. I get about two pounds of snow peas per week from a few plants, about 2 pounds from three pole bean plants (7 lbs from 10 plants from the 2nd planting). For my configuration, planting peas close together do not seem to affect the harvest much. Jordanz, I've been growing peas for years. In my SF East Bay zone 8, a few freezes and ice/hail have never killed any peas. I guess our advantage is that we really don't get much snow here so the fall planted peas always produce until early summer for me. I also sow peas in September every year.

Josh-- "I would love to try the Hydroton method, I just am not really sure where to buy it or the pots? I'm assuming online? Can you link me?" Sorry, no link, though I believe you can buy this stuff on Amazon. In fact I think many places sell it, but it becomes expensive to ship, especially with the USPS in its death-throes. Ha! But I can tell you that more and more places here in Colorado are selling it. Honestly, I think mostly because of Denver making pot legal. I personally do not partake in this type of gardening myself, though who am I to say what people can and cannot grow? Anyway, this has helped the hydroponics market here because of the high demand. In fact, once while in a hydro store, one of the fellow patrons asked me how I grow my plants and so I told him and he asked about my results-- when I told him how amazing my blooms were he was utterly confused. He thought I meant pot when really I was speaking on orchids. We all need our hobbies... So my suggestion to you is to call around. Search Google for a hydroponics supplier and if all those fail, there is Amazon and ebay. Buy a small bag and give it a try to decide if that's where you want to go with growing more plants this way. That's what I did. It started off with orchids and then I heard of the myriad of other plants people grew in this stuff and I gave it a whirl. As for the pot-- depends on what you want to grow it in. Easiest is plastic. Walmart has gallon-sized square storage containers-- in the isle where they have all their plastic food storage and lunch boxes etc. It's there "Main Stay" brand. Works perfectly for one hippie bulb (or one orchid, as the case may be). Below is a link on how to set up the rest. The creator of semi-hydroponics is Ray from First Rays Orchids in Pennsylvania, not far from my home town. Follow his instructions, but think "bigger" scale than the smaller containers he uses for orchids. Noni this goes for you too-- read Ray's page and let me know what questions you may have. His method is excellent but I've made adjustments according to my own growing environment. For instance, my reservoirs are deeper because at 10% relative humidity many times of the year plus windy conditions, the plants will use up a lot of their reservoir. As for fertilizer, I use Grow More's Phal fertilizer. I believe its something like 20-16-20 plus the micro nutrients-- I deliver the water via a hand-pumped pressurized tank that holds two gallons. I put at most a teaspoon of fertilizer in for those two gallons-- a weak solution but its given with every watering. I should mention though that the orchids get watered rarely. Each orchid goes through a freshwater flushing every few weeks. Hippies feed a bit heavier and get a flushing every few weeks and then some-- they don't seem to be bothered much by biproduct build up though during their growing season outside, they get flushed all the time by storms or by the garden hose. Orchids are much more sensitive to any mineral or fertilizer buildup. In general, if I see "crystals" forming on the hydroton, that pot gets flushed. Noni I never share water between plants, especially with the real possibility of viruses. I'm by no means an expert on this so please don't take anything I have to say to heart-- the only thing you can do is read up on the subject and figure it out for your conditions. With that said, I love this growing method and plan to keep on with it. ooooooooooooooook Gardenweb is totally lame and won't let me post the link.... so here it is in plain text, though I'm sure somewhere someone in Gardenweb is clenched and angry. Gawd this place has declined.... ok it won't even let me post it as plain text.... Isn't a forum supposed to be a place to learn and share and teach? If anyone is interested in this further, I urge you to go to the Landspro forum. Very disappointed, DR

I have tried baking soda with little effect a mix of ascorbic acid and water may also help a little. The mildew happens rapidly and once you see a single yellow leaf, it has begun. I spray with a fungicide called Serenade, which works quite well. Its done every 7 days during the bearing of the cukes. Bees love the blossoms and I usually have many bees busy all day long. I go out and pick at sunrise as its a little cooler and easy to find them on a vertical trellis. The honey bees must be local as they are busy all day and the area sounds like a huge bee hive. They usually are just fine even if I am out there picking right next to them, as they are not very aggressive. I posted links above to web site for pickling cucumbers, and if you don't know how to get these links copied to an internet browser, just simply point at an end or start of the HTML line (above), and hold down the left mouse button and move to the left or right to highlight the whole line. Once highlighted, press the control key down while you then press the C key. Open a new browser page and remove the text at the window at the top. Or point to what text is there, and then its highlighted, press the delete key. Position the mouse pointer in that window while you hold the control key down and presk V to paste the previously copied text. Press enter. Then it will show you the web page link. I made it easier to show you the Jung pickling cucumber seed assortment. Here is a link that might be useful: Jung Seed- pickling cukes

My neighbor has a GG hedge, full sun, about 6ft apart. The hedge is around 15 years old and 20ft tall. No question, being planted in a row definitely slows their growth rate once they start touching, but either way, he has started rounding/trimming the tops for the last 5 years to keep it from becoming the green monster wall... It's starting to become pretty imposing. A solo specimen would probably be 30ft+ after 15 and twice as wide as his are. As pointed out, there are examples of 60ft+ Green Giants as the US Arboretum, even some hedges nearing that height, though I don't know the planting distance. GG's do extremely well in the east, other than potentially shorter sunlight hours/intensity, there is nothing on this coast that will slow them down. They are great.