P.S. d-d - I haven't read Hogarth on the Line of Beauty - I'll add that to my winter reading assignment from Ink re Dumbarton Oaks, and serpentine.... :-) A quick thought though from looking at the Wikipedia link you provided: One of the illustrations on the right side shows the line of the spine of the artist. The artist has a rather exaggerated bend at both his knnes and back; leaning precariously backwards! The line of the spine in a normal upright stance would be curved but considerably less so than that example. And to make the line of the spine a more pronounced serpentine, you are condemming the poor owner of the spine to an extremely painful disability! So, it seems to me - based on that quick scan of the wiki entry - that the line is most beautiful if it only deviates a small amount from the straight line that large deviations could well result in the painful opposite of beauty! So I think the amplitude of the curves and the distance they cover must be important factors in whether the curve looks attractive or not.

Peat is not compost. Loam is not compost- nor does it have a fertilizer value per se. What are you growing in this? If starting seedlings- you want it soil-less (read "no loam"). Adding fertilizer later is preferable for seedlings as well- seeds have a storage of what the plant needs to get to a reasonable size with secondary leaves before it needs external fertilizer (some link extra nutrient to certain diseases). If you want this for indoor plants, square foot gardening, etc- that may be a whole different can 'o worms.

Peggy, you should look up Seeds of Diversity which is local and they maintain a 'seed library'. Not to mention you can access other member's seeds. They focus on heritage seeds. Ianna Here is a link that might be useful: seeds of diversity Canada

Hi Dan Nice to hear from you. I've since discovered that there's now no problem in trading seeds, small ones at least, between the US and UK. It's a far cry from 2004 when a US friend and I would debate whether to add beans to rosary chains to disguise them as ethnic jewellery! My trade list has shrunk sadly in recent years but I have these heirloom tomatoes. I've kept growing them because each has some very special characteristic: Alaskan Fancy (early red small plum), Sasha's Altai (ultra-early, large red), Aunt Madge (UK heirloom, small red plum, totally indestructible), Cherokee Purple, Broad Ripple Yellow Currant (small yellow cherry, remarkably blight-resistant), Vince (large yellow stuffer, looks exactly like a sweet pepper) and Fablonelystnjy (large yellow cherry, Polish, intensely sweet and prolific). Let me know if there's anything there you'd like. Best wishes John Yeoman Here is a link that might be useful: The Gardening Guild