Kristin: Oh my; I always seem to get an argument, don't I? I should point out that there is such a thing as hot compost. There is a firm around where I live whose compost one year was a bit too hot and they sent warnings to people to be sure to age it a bit more before applying it. This is a professional supplier of compost which uses local grape waste and apple sludge mixed of course with other things. Compost does go through stages, you know. Yes, of course your sweet peas would do well in that area. There is nothing wrong with those dimensions and you are keeping them from being water logged. But if you want spectacular ones, which is the point of growing them; you might consider what I tell you. I have been growing them for years. Felix: most sweet peas do indeed have some scent. The perennial type do not; those that you see on the roadside that are fuchsia pink and purple or white, do not. The hybrids mostly do; but some are more strongly scented than others. I grow English ones which are superb for form and colour. I have put three stems in a vase on the table and had the room almost overpowered with scent with some varieties. There is a lot more to sweet peas than your local drugstore's litle packet. Should you be interested in these, which are developed for exhibition, please let me know. I will be glad to send you a few seeds to try out.

First off I want to thank all of you for the info and thank you galina, I have checked into that. Cottage Garden, thank you for offering, when you get what you are looking for let me know, as I'm interested in what he might bring you, and will be glad to do some trading, I have a nice interesting garden pea that has red flowers and the seeds look like they have a red coloration to the seeds, which is interesting at least to me, along with some others. I will be busy this and next month working and getting the raised beds ready, but will keep looking in to see if there are any new post or you can PM me if you like. I haven't updated my page which I really need to. In the past I grew a lot of hot peppers, and still grow a few rare ones, although because of the medication I take I can't eat them now, So I grow a lot of other vegetables like peas which are fast becoming my favorites over heirloom beans which I grow a few of. My garden is a result of my love for my grand daughters, which I try hard to show them how to grow their own food, so that when they grow up they will never go hungry so long as thy can grow some vegetables, even if they have to use containers. I pray that they don't go through the hard times like I did when I was just a boy. If it wasn't for my father when he was alive I would have gone hungry at times, had I not known how to garden, and I want to pass that along to my grand daughters. At the rate that many heirloom seeds are being lost to the new hybrids that are being developed, I fear that soon we may all have to buy seeds that have been hybridized, by companies that only care about the money they can make, and not about the true quality of flavor that heirloom vegetables have. So many hybrids are made for ease of shipment and harvisting over taste. Store bought tomatoes are just one of the great losses, as they no longer taste like a tomato and if you look for fresh peas, well your lucky to find a few snow peas and at a high cost, even the best canned peas ar a meer shadow of what they use to taste like even though the canning process has improved a 100 precent over the last 50 years, and we have flash freezing, the peas and beans have little flavor of what they use to taste like. I'm thankful that we still have a few heirlooms that we can grow and save seeds of. This might all change over night if Monsanto has its way. Right now its trying to get a bill passed right under our noses that will allow it to grow GM plants that might ruin many OP varieties and heirloom seeds not to mention hybrids, because of crossing with their GM varieties. All this of course is just my two cents, But take a good look around and see what is going by the wayside. George W. Z5-6 MO.

I like baker creek almost exclusively! I dont have your wants but.. check out my list and see if I can interest you anything in exchange for your Scarlett Runner Beans. Here is my list: http://www.backyardlogs.com/index.php/log/43-my-seed-vault

Thanks for the great feedback, rgreen48. Starting the new garden this year, and getting a late start on it, I reconciled myself to the idea that if we harvested anything from the garden that would be a bonus...that we were simply trying to get the foundation started for the garden. Naturally, when I saw plants growing and blooming I shifted gears from "we're building a garden" to "I've gotta save the plants and gotta harvest two tons of vegetables off of this little piece of dirt!!!".<rolling eyes> Then, of course, along comes downy mildew, SVB (most likely), etc.,. Reality sets in that I've created a buffet for uninvited guests of different sorts. "Patient fortitude"...nice expression. <chuckle> Thanks for the reality check on needing to be more specific...I see that I was asking in a "shotgun pattern" manner. I've looked at lots of plant/variety lists and I agree there is a long, long list of different varieties. That's probably why I asked my original question(s) asking for recommendations...the list can be, uh, a little overwhelming. :) But, I agree that being more specific will gather better response and more research on my part will allow me to ask more informed questions. I think I'm going to be happy with my okra variety (Clemson Spineless) and my cowpeas (Zipper Cream) are starting to bloom on some *very* robust bushes so I think I'm good on them, though I might try a smaller seeded variety along with them next year. Yellow crookneck squash, though having a tough go of it (planted late), will also be one that I'll be planting again next year. The jury is still out on my tomatoes, cukes, and melons...all seem to be struggling but I'm not so sure a lot of that is accountable to the extremely wet/humid summer that we've had. So, I may just plant two or three new varieties of these next year and see which performs the best...maybe buy a large enough quantity of seed to replant the next year of the favored plant to insure against crossing between the varieties...??? ...and hope for a less incubator-style weather pattern next year! Saving seeds from hybirds... If I save the seeds of a hybrid and then replant them I understand that the resulting plant will be a wildcard but will the seeds from that wildcard plant produce replicas of itself and be OP? ....ok, I did some googling (it takes me forever to respond to a good post!<g>) and from what I can tell it takes the 7th generation to have a "new" stable variety from hybrid seeds...is that the Reader's Digest condensed version of the answer to my question? Vegetable gardeners are like beekeepers, it appears...ask ten beekeepers a question and get 20 answers...maybe 21. ;) Thanks for the good food for thought!