[Petronius_II]

Snow peas are my favorite, and I've gotten good results with Oregon Sugar Pod II and Mammoth Melting Sugar.

I prefer MMS because it's more heat-tolerant and will produce more over a longer season. However, MMS can easily grow to 4 or 5 feet and maybe more given the opportunity, so a trellis is almost mandatory.

For saving horizontal space, tall varieties that need a trellis are theoretically ideal, but Alderman aka Tall Telephone has never performed well for me, and died off early one year from what appeared to be fusarium wilt; meanwhile I got a somewhat meager crop from whatever pea I planted next to it, despite the wilt.

The original Sugar Snap is still a top-performing snap pea and a perennial favorite among children especially. Super Sugar Snap is said to be even better, can't say from experience. Both also can use a trellis of some kind.

I do advise saving seed. Save only from the last 1/4 or 1/3 or so of your specimens, the ones that are still producing after spring/summer heat has shut the others down, keep doing that every year, and sooner or later somebody's going to come up with a pea that could've withstood last summer's scorcher of a heat wave. I do think Mammoth Melting Sugar has a lot of potential to become the most heat-resistant pea ever. Willhite's has it for $4.50 a pound, probably a Texas strain which might be pretty heat-resistant to begin with.

The only shelling pea I've ever grown is Wando, well known as the most heat-resistant shelling pea and the only one most Albuquerqueans grow. Grows to about 3 feet and can benefit from being trellised but doesn't require it. I grew mine on a fence that got partial shade during the hottest part of the day, and it performed very well.