Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you live in a beautiful spot of the country. I took notes on your favorite tomatoes; I need a change.

Welcome Seedsonshirt! Glad you're joining in. Tell us more about your gardens.

Thank you for the welcome and the kind words.

I grow organically, and encourage nature to do as many of the gardening chores for me as I can. I keep a water source surrounded with herbs and flowers as an oasis for beneficials. My short list of livestock (4 hens and a goat) make their contributions to the garden. We intend to start boarding horses so I can have even more free manure.

My garden layout is semi-formal, consisting of 10 main 4'x20' beds, and a continuous 4' wide border. The 8' diameter pool is in the center, with a 1' wide planter encircling it and four small herb beds near by. All together, it's roughly 60'x70'. I grow a variety of vegetables, flowers and herbs.

We live literally IN a forest. The worst problem in the beginning was all the shade, but my trusty Husqvarna took care of that. I still have some large trees probably a little too close to the garden, and they get mighty thirsty in August and September.

There are lots of wild pear and plum trees, so I'll probably get plums and pears when I start an orchard. I'd love to grow antique apples, but I'm concerned about losing my investment to cedar apple rust and fireblight - both common here. I planted a couple of potted fig trees this year, and hopefully they're in a sheltered enough location to make it through the winters. This is gonna' sound nuts, but I'd also like to try my hand at growing olive trees.

I want to eventually build a permanent hothouse. I need to do it soon, because my tropical Jackfruit trees will soon outgrow the kitchen windows... It will be nice to have someplace NOT in the house to start all my seedlings each spring.

Your gardens sound nice. Maybe you can post some photos someday. What's the difference between a hothouse and a greenhouse - or are they the same thing?
I'm hoping for a big sun room someday where I could put plants. It's on my "when I win the lottery" list. We don't have a formal dining room so really I could use the extra space for an eating area when family comes over.

If you're running out of room to start seeds inside, you may want to check out the Winter Sowing forum. You can start a lot of seeds outside over winter in covered (vented) containers. They may not germinate as early as seeds started inside but you don't have to harden them off so that's an advantage. It's a good way to use up an over-abundance of seeds if you get carried away with seed trading. lol