My name is Jerry, and I live in Mountaindale, Oregon which is 20 miles west of Portland and in hardiness zone 8.
My mother was an avid vegetable gardener and began teaching me to pull weeds at the age of 5, and somehow even after that, gardening got into my blood and I can't shake it.
This will likely be my last vegetable garden in the USA, so I have pretty much gone "all out". I started all my garden plants indoors during April and early May utilizing heat mats and flourescent lights. I built 4 coldframe boxes with white plastic sheeting tops for wind and rain protection which the starting plants resided in while they waited their turn for transplanting into the garden proper. My growing space is 25ft. X 125ft. so I have space to grow many different veggies, but the two that may be of most interest are my tomatos and pumpkins. The tomato garden consists of 36 plants total, three plants each of 12 varieties of heirloom tomatos. Each variety is planted together in a group of three, and I have three varieties to a row for 9 plants to a row total, running north and south. All 36 plants were started on from seed (on April 15) purchased at Territorial Seed Company of Cottage Grove, Oregon. They do have a fantastic website. Most are nearing 36 inchs tall now (July 18) and in full blossom. I certainly could not afford to purchase 36 pre-manufactured tomato "cages", so I constructed my own using a 48" wide fencing wire. I will post some photos of this as soon as I get the opportunity.
This is my first year to attempt to grow giant pumpkins. I have two Dill Atlantic Giant plants growing nicely with a couple of pumkins already set by manually inseminating the female blossoms. There are lots of lessons on how to do this in YouTube. My goal is to grow 2 pumpkins exceeding 500 pounds, but time and weather and luck will tell. Gotta go for now becos the weeds are calling,...But I will welcome and attempt to answer any questions as quickly as possible. Green thumbs up!
