The Little Pumpkin That Could(n't)

Last fall, I bought a wonderful white pumpkin striped with orange and green at a farm stand near my job at the time. I had never seen anything quite like it. I got it just for decoration rather than for eating, so at the end of the season I bashed it apart on my concrete patio and put the pieces along the tree line at the back of our property as a seasonal treat for the deer and other woodland creatures who frequent the area. I saved a bunch of the seeds for myself with the hope of growing my own lovely, unique pumpkins.

When I started my herb seeds this spring, I put three of the saved pumpkin seeds in the starter tray. I learned that this variety was called One Too Many, which seemed like a good sign. Out of the three seeds I started, one plant grew. Boy did it grow. It was the reason I needed to keep raising the grow lamp. I also planted three Long Pie pumpkins seeds, with one actually germinating too. But Long Pie is just a side character in this story. One Too Many is our protagonist.

May 5: One Too Many on the left, Long Pie on the right.

May 23: One Too Many on the left, Long Pie on the right.

I had really good feelings about my pumpkin seedlings when I transplanted them out into the garden on Memorial Day weekend. Of the two, I gave better odds of survival to One Too Many. Long Pie was a nice seedling but kind of spindly. I know pumpkins can be resentful of transplanting, but I was confident that sturdy One Too Many would be fine. 

May 25: One Too Many in the center of the bed in the background. Small but proud.

I planted arugula in the bed with One Too Many. I like to put fast spring crops with larger later plants. I put Pak Choi in the bed with the zucchini and radishes with the beans. There is also a sweet basil plant in the corner of the bed, which grew beautifully and made tasty pesto but has little bearing on this tale. 

I feel like the arugula may have somewhat overwhelmed One Too Many. As the little spicy leaves flourished, the pumpkin just kinda sat there, not growing much but not giving up either.

June 22: Arugula making a run for it and going to seed with One Too Many at the left.

June 22: After the arugula was harvested giving One Too Many some breathing room.

I will admit that at this point, I was a bit concerned. Pumpkins have long growing seasons and One Too Many was pretty much the same size as it had been when it went into the garden a month earlier. Would there be time to make fruit? I considered adding something else to the bed to use the space. Each year I have to decided how to best use the very limited space I have. I don't like empty ground in my beds. But I decided to give the little pumpkin a chance and in just a few weeks, it was really doing its thing.

August 11 - One Too Many filling the bed.

August 11: A pumpkin!!

August 18: And another! (certainly not one too many, though)

I was excited to find the first tiny pumpkin. Then another larger one appeared a week later. After finding the second, more robust pumpkin, I debated taking off the smaller. That would funnel more resources to the larger and give it a better chance of growth. That made some sense, but I didn't want to limit the pumpkin potential. All your eggs in one basket, etc., etc. So, I left them both be and the plant ended up self-selecting the larger pumpkin anyway.

August 31: Looking fine.

The pumpkin began putting on weight and its stripes began to develop. It was slow and steady for weeks as I watched over it. By mid-September, I began thinking about when I should pick my one and only One Too Many pumpkin. It was not growing any bigger and the orange webbing on its white skin had really darkened to a lovely shade. One of the many squirrels in the neighborhood (the bane of my garden, which haven't really been too terrible this season actually) had sampled the pumpkin. It was only a little nick, though. I could bring it in now but I didn't want to cut it from the vine too early. There were still several weeks left in the season. So, I left it where it was.

September 21: Look at those stripes!

Spoiler alert, I should have picked it. This last week was very rainy. There weren't any torrential storms, just near-constant rain and perpetual gloominess. I did cursory checks of the garden each day. I picked a bucket of grape tomatoes on one dryer day but otherwise did little to the other plants. The sun finally came out at the end of the week so I could do a more in-depth inspection. When I looked at One Too Many, I did not like what I saw.

September 29: hmmm

The squirrels had been sampling again. While frustrating, it wasn't the end of the world. We weren't planning on eating this pumpkin. It was just for display. The missing chunk was unsightly but maybe it was still salvageable. Looking closer, though, it seemed like the pumpkin had sunk slightly into the ground. Perhaps it had rained heavily enough for the dirt underneath it to wash out. Well then, I had better pull it out of the mud and put it back on solid ground. So, I gently lifted it up...

Sad trumpet sounds.

Well crud. The pumpkin hadn't sunken into the soft ground. The underside had completely rotted and it collapsed. So much for One Too Many's lone pumpkin.

I hate to leave a story on a sad note. Remember side character Long Pie? Our spindly little friend produced three pumpkins. We plan on eating them. And I still have a bag of saved seeds from last fall's decorative pumpkin so I can try again next year.

Three Long Pie pumpkins just waiting to be part of the fall feast.

Not the nibbler but still a squirrel (photo from last summer)