Something very exciting happened this summer. I started the process of growing my first pumpkins. Well, to be fair, the pumpkins starting growing themselves. They grew from the seeds of last year's pumpkins that sat outside all winter. Like many plants that start themselves, the vines grew heartily. At times a little too heartily.
I learned a lot about pumpkins this summer, like how to identify the gender of a pumpkin flower. I also learned how to pollinate the blooms myself, but I didn't end up needing that knowledge. There's no bee shortage around here and the bees loved the pumpkin blossoms! I also learned about how the plant starts "showing" as a little pumpkin bump grows under a female blossom.
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| Two female blossoms showing the start of two baby pumpkins. |
This was so interesting that I began charting the pumpkins' progress.
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| One clue that this is a male blossom is that there is no little bump at its base. Other signs can be found by looking inside the blossom. |
After noticing that one pumpkin was changing very rapidly, I decided to document the changes each week. Here is the process of a pumpkin's growth on the vine with the dates each photo was taken.
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| July 26 -You can see what's left of the blossom at the end of this little gourd. |
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| August 1 - Look how much it has grown in a few days! As you can see, the blossom has dropped off. |
Look at the cool stripes on the vine. If you enlarge this photo, you'll
see some little stickers coming off the vine. It's hard to see them from
far away, but you can sure feel them if you touch the vines or even the leaves!
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| August 5 - Look how fast it grew in 4 days! |
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At this point, I started photographing the pumpkin with a quarter on it. I did this so it would be clear how much it had grown in comparison to the coin.
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| August 12 - The pumpkin is much rounder at this point and a deeper green. |
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The pumpkin is covered in rain drops from that morning's rain.
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| August 19 - The pumpkin is starting to change colors. See the little orange stripe in the middle? |
I also got a shot of the pumpkin's bottom that day:
A close-up of the changing skin:
Just a few days later, the pumpkin started to turn somewhat orange all over:
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| August 21 - You can see a bit of a leaf there too. |
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| August 26 - The pumpkin is now entirely orange! |
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| September 4 - The pumpkin is a richer orange and getting ready to be harvested. |
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All through the pumpkin's growth, the mailman continued to come by and comment on its progress. He was really interested in how it was changing and worried that it might be too flat on one side from resting on the ground. He thought the pumpkin should be rotated. As it happened, the final harvest occurred just as he dropped by to deliver some mail! He got to be there for that cutting moment and he was happy to see that the pumpkin wasn't too flat on one side. For anyone who hasn't cut a pumpkin off a vine, here's a bit of advice: cut the vine at first, not the stem. The stem is really tough, even with a big, sharp knife!
So here are the two pumpkins, a big one and a medium sized one:
The larger one ended up being 41" around. I had thought it was a little larger than that before harvesting it. The smaller one is 35" around. To put that in perspective, the larger pumpkin is the equivalent of a ladies size 22 (US size according to some size charts I just found online). The medium one is about the same as a size 18. I'm comparing pumpkin circumference to waist size to show that these pumpkins are pretty adult sized.
Guess what I just noticed? A third pumpkin. Here it is as of today, September 29:
I'm thinking this pumpkin could be full size by Halloween!
Pumpkins can be bought, but I gained a lot of joy and some extra gardening knowledge from growing them. If you have some space to work with, I'd recommend trying this! You'll get an awesome feeling as you watch your pumpkins grow.
P.S. ~ Remember the Halloween music mix exchange from last year? If not, here's a link to last year's blog post:
Let's Trade Our Halloween Music Mixes
Now that it's nearly October, I'd like to give this another go! If you exchanged with me last year and have a second CD's worth of new music, let's trade. :) Just shoot me an email here:
contactartgirl@gmail.com with your address!
