Gill, I worked in my gardens and greenhouse all day yesterday. It was so wonderful. While I was out there I took a few photos of various seedlings so that you could see the differences. I changed from my shutterfly account which I could not post several pictures in a row to another acct. NOW...lets see if I can post several photos in a row. This one is Arabicum Dwarf Black Knight http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5474/10503849694_f0af8af274_b.jpg This is Thai Socotranum http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7342/10503832356_2049a60b68_b.jpg This is Somalense http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/10503827184_10568dd8c6_b.jpg I have a few other varieties withing these species but wanted to hurry and get back to work as it is supposed to get cold and snowy again and I want to have all my gardens cleaned up. Ok, It must be me...I will place them individually as I don't think the above is working. Here is Arabicum Dwarf Black Knight

hardclay7a I will check out that article, I have been meaning to read more of Danielfp's blog. But you know how it goes, so much to do and never enough time. It was about April last spring when I had the problem with my peas. I started them in late September or early October and they grew, but slowly. I knew they were not hot weather plants, I planed to build a frame and cover it with plastic to make a greenhouse over them, but never did. So they grew and looked good, just slowly in the cold weather. But come late January early February they exploded with new growth, and wound up over 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide for 4 snow pea plants. The regular peas wound up about half that, I forget what species those were. But to answer your question, no I never Inoculated with anything. I was using General Hydroponics Flora series nutrients and that's it, I may have used some H2O2 but don't remember. It wasn't until the plants got real big (2-3 weeks before I harvested them) that I started to notice the brown cloudy water. I e-mailed pictures and details to General hydroponics tech support, who explained that peas are legumes and that they have roots that do that. So I did some reading up on them at the time. But ya legume have roots that can change their own environments by secreting certain types chemicals and enzymes. I know I said they can secret bacteria, but I believe it was enzymes along with chemicals instead. These secreted enzymes and chemicals have evolved to perform functions like to promote beneficial bacteria growth to help break down the soil into the nutrients they need, to repel soil born pests, and even damage or repel roots of other plant species that get in their root zone. That was all new to me before I had the problem. I wasn't familiar with growing peas either at the time, and found out that even though they had recently had a good 2 month growth spurt, they were still 7 month old plants near the end of their life. So considering that both type of peas had intertwined root systems, that were nearing the end of their life, they were just doing all they could to stay alive longer. P.S. So I just harvested all the peas on both type of pea plants, and was able to just about fill 3, 2 gallon Ziploc bags. Most were snow peas. Witch was fine with me because I didn't want to shuck the other peas. I let my mom do that, they were here idea anyway.

Um... okay.

tracy, me neither lol, i just have to cut them or else they will keep growing and the smaller plants will loose out on lights, and get tall and lanky rick the plug is expandable and more like a sponge, but have to remove them soon before they get choke in the hole, its only 1inch wide, i will find out when i pull them out in the sponge, or ill just leave it like that till they break it, pretty sure by the time i transfer them to soil, the growth will slow down big time, this always happen everytime i transfer from hydroponics to soil transition