A surprise giant pumpkin patch!

This pumpkin patch was a surprise! It was in the middle of a local park and these photos are from yesterday. If there had been a pumpkin patch there in past years, I hadn't been aware of it.

All the pumpkins growing there were massive! And it appears they're still growing. I wonder if we'll see any of them in this year's village Halloween display? I also wonder how much larger they'll get.

This one looked like a giant ghost pumpkin. I don't think I'd seen a giant white pumpkin before this one.

So far, there are five big pumpkins out there. They're being shaded and supported well. As you can see, the pumpkins had a nice wood support under them.

And the vines went on and on!

Making this area even more Halloweeny was the nearby flower patch full of black velvety petunias.

So, how about that? A little Halloween surprise a few months early!

In other Halloween type news, I got around to seeing Hotel Transylvania. After hearing there was a third one out, I figured it was time to see the first one. It was very cute and funny. It's one of those animated movies where it's fun to see if you can recognize the celebrity voices. I loved every moment of Steve Buscemi as the werewolf.

Caramel Apples and Chainsaw Art

I have another wholesome, sunny fall day for you guys! So in a way it's a continuation of my last blog post. Every year I look forward to our trip out through the country to the Elegant Farmer. This year, I spotted something fun before we had our caramel apples. There was an artist in front of a shop there, carving figures with his chainsaw.

How fun is his pumpkin man creation? Look at those toenails. There was also this spooky witch. She'll stare right through you!

So here is the carver at work:

I had to get a pic of his t-shirt. I love this.

Some of his previous creations were out on the lawn. It looked like he was making a gnome or Santa figure while I was photographing him.

I just checked out his web site after looking at the company name on this trailer. I got a kick out of the beaver with the chainsaw here:

Younger's Woodery

Across from the chainsaw artist, was the smiley face barn. I'm sure you remember this friendly face!

Time for the caramel apples! This year, we had some massive Granny Smiths.

I lucked into a lot of caramel, because my apple slipped while the girl was coating it. So it got a second go round. Mmm... Look at that reflection in the caramel. As usual, I ended up with a pile of random sprinkles/nuts in the dish.

Mom had the more sensible/easier to eat, pre-cut caramel apple.

You can see the wind was really blowing that day!

We had good timing and saw the electric trains coming in as we left.

You can see the wires there, above the train.

See the face in the light?

Has anyone heard of that "Storck" beer? Looking at the $2.79 a case part, we can assume that's an older brand.

For Pep, Drink Zep! 5¢ for a bottle Zep. That must be older than the Storck beer.

How cool is this window? It's like the window on a boat.

I love these old painted signs, like something you'd see on a building.

And should you forget this is an electric train...

Again, some cool graphics. I could see this on a t-shirt.

This sign was up near the tracks. How appropriate is this for Halloween?

Here are a few pics from our time driving there. I was actually trying to take  pics of the little pumpkins that were decorating that fence, and didn't even notice the big one! How funny is that? Looks like that jack-o-lantern is hanging off a crane?

I think they had a pumpkin patch or orchard. It's hard to tell from here. Cool spooky tree, anyway!

A gravel quarry:

We passed a Target on the way back where we saw this guy. This pumpkin creature is massive! I love his reaching hands.

We bought these cute little velvet pumpkins while there:

Hope you enjoyed the virtual trip to The Elegant Farmer! It's always a fun day for us and we had some awesome weather for it. I'll have some Halloween antiques coming up in the next blog post!

My pumpkin process from bloom to harvest

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.

Two female blossoms showing the start of two baby pumpkins.

This was so interesting that I began charting the pumpkins' progress.

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.

July 26 -You can see what's left of the blossom at the end of this little gourd.

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!

August 5 - Look how fast it grew in 4 days! 

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.

August 12 - The pumpkin is much rounder at this point and a deeper green.

The pumpkin is covered in rain drops from that morning's rain.

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:

August 21 - You can see a bit of a leaf there too.

August 26 - The pumpkin is now entirely orange!

September 4 - The pumpkin is a richer orange and getting ready to be harvested.

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!