Introducing myself to the community

[MontyJ]

Hello all,

Since I have already posted several times I thought maybe I should introduce myself. My name, obviously, is Monty. I've been gardening for about 30 years, sometimes big, sometimes small, depending on where I lived. About 10 years ago I finally bought the property I now live on. My garden, at one time, was over 10,000 square feet. Since I gave up growing giant pumpkins, and most of our girls (4 of them total) have moved away, I have been able to trim the garden size down to about 3600 square feet. I grow everything from apples to zucchini. I have an asparagus bed, rhubarb bed, grape vines, apple trees and peach trees.
I maintain a large compost pile and at one time had a large vermiculture project going. Unfortunately, my job sometimes keep me traveling and the wife is not big on taking care of worms, so I have temporarily given up the vermicomposting. I have studied the soil for many years and spend a lot of effort trying to keep my soil balanced.
I preserve a lot of what I grow by canning and freezing.
My favorite vegetables are corn fresh off the stalk and into the pot, turnips, and kohlrabi. I start nearly everything I grow from seed. I have a germination/grow chamber in my barn and two temporary greenhouses that I set up each spring. My goal is to eventually have a permenant greenhouse, but I have larger, more important projects that must be completed first.

I guess I have bored you enough so,

hello again.

Monty

 

[journey11]

Thanks for sharing your bio, Monty. You will add a lot of depth to this community as you share your experiences. Glad you could join us!

ETA: We are neighbors too, I see. Gotta love gardening in WV. Humidity and red clay, but we rarely lack for rain, do we.

 

[MontyJ]

I live in the northern panhandle Journey. We do have clay here, but I am lucky enough to have about 10" of good topsoil covering my little piece of mountain top. We do get the rain though! And heck, who can name a better place to view the fall foliage? I wan't born in WV, but I'm sure glad my wife was and talked me into moving here. I have lived here for about 20 years and still see things that make me go "WOW! Look at that!" Watching the hills turn in the fall just never gets old. Then again, watching them turn green in the spring never gets old either!

 

[Mickey328]

Awww, I'm so envious! DH and I have been sort of scouting around to find a good place to move to...for gardening and critters. WV is one of the places we've been looking. Not too sure about all that humidity though.

Welcome aboard; I'm sure with your experience you'll be handing out very useful advice!

 

[thistlebloom]

Welcome Monty! I've enjoyed reading your posts. You have a broad base of experience!

Yesss!!! Another brain to pick!!

 

[so lucky]

Yes, Welcome, and glad to learn a little about you. I could tell you knew what you were talking about!

 

[ninnymary]

Wow, Monty..sounds like you have quite a garden setup there. It's hard for me to visualize 10,000 sq.ft. of gardening space. I've always lived in the city so I'm more used to postage size gardens. Your garden sounds very lovely. I don't know how you can keep up with all that and working too.

Glad you joined us.

Mary

 

[nachoqtpie]

from the Southeastern coast of North Carolina!

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Hi Monty and welcome. There are lots of good folks here and I'm sure you'll enjoy becoming a part of our gang.

 

[MontyJ]

Thanks for the welcome folks! A little more about myself...

I used to be a "Mentor" on another website. My duties were to mainly take the inexperienced under my wing and teach them to garden. It worked great for awhile. It came to an end when the mods simply quit taking care of the site. Posts were taken off topic constantly with waaay too much chit-chat and banter. Now don't get me wrong, chit-chat is part of the internet community; I understand that. But when a member finds every reason to post a picture of a helicopter or half naked woman in the thread, I have to draw the line. So, I left that site and started my own. I ran my own gardening site for awhile, but being an outside person and trying to keep a grip on my own projects, I soon found myself in way over my head. I directed the members to find other homes and closed the site down. That was a few years ago. I haven't belonged to a gardening site since. This is the first gardening site I have visited...and wouldn't have visited here if not for finding it through BYC. I understand there are many BYC'ers here on this site. I don't yet have chickens and joined BYC to learn a bit before I made the plunge. I go by a different name on BYC. Those that are astute will understand when I say that JB is standing in the culled pumpkin I posted in another thread on this forum.

I don't pretend to know everything. If I did, I wouldn't be here. I do believe that I bring a lot to the community. I specialize in soil, canning, and growing giant vegetables, especially pumpkins. If there is enough interest, I would be willing to post a series of articles, call it a primer, on growing giant pumpkins.

Again, thanks for the warm welcome! Maybe I have found a new garden home

And ninnymary, maybe I can hunt down a few pics of the garden at it's greatest, pumpkins and all.