Our Pumpkin

In November 2011 we threw our decomposing carved pumpkins into my flower bed at the front of the house.  With the renovations we've done this little section of yard has not been fixed up and made nice.  It's pretty much just compacted dirt, rocks, weeds.  My plan was - when Spring 2012 came, start working on that little section, and we did.  We got rid of lots of rocks, I started taking some of the dirt out since it is too high & loading up the dirt box in the back for the kids to play in.  But let me be honest: 1) it's hard work and 2) I don't have a ton of time to spend out there so it was ssslllloooowww going.

Early Summer arrives and I'm ready to start taking more dirt out of the garden, only to find we've got pumpkin plants growing!!  Hallelujah!  A reason to not do this job!!  LOL  I can't go about digging up plants Jesus is going to make grow, right??  

The spot these plants were growing is under a low overhang.  They get almost all day sun (when the sun is shining) but very little rain.  I had just purchased a soaker hose in my attempt to remember to take care of my flowers along the side of the house, so we stretched it out along the side to the front. It only reached to the first plant, which was the biggest, so we wrapped it around the base and hoped for the best.  

I checked on these plants often.  They got bigger, and bigger, and flowered!  It didn't look like anything more was going to happen until one day, there was a pumpkin!!  This pumpkin kept on growing! The kids were all quite excited to watch the process and Zaraya was constantly keeping me updated.  

The rain started in late October (later than the last couple years) and I lifted it onto a rack to keep it off the damp ground.  Then the frost came and killed the plant.  I cut it off, hoping it would still survive and ripen.  This pumpkin weighed 14.4 lbs!!!  Unreal for a non-planted pumpkin!!  :)  

These photos were taken 2 weeks before it was actually cut from the vine so it still got a little bigger than pictured here.  

Unfortunately, this pumpkin has not survived and is going all icky.  The plan is to now plant it in a large container so that hopefully we can take better care of it as it grows next year.