Photo by Jessica Walliser Because none of my pumpkin vines produced fruit, I might have to purchase a warty Galeux d’Eysine pumpkin from the farmers’ market. |
I’m so disappointed that we didn’t get any of our own pumpkins this season! I planted five pumpkin vines, including an Atlantic Giant, a Howden, and some others I don’t remember, but none of them managed to set any fruit.
Actually there was a small pumpkin on the Atlantic Giant vine at one point early in the season, but I think the deer managed to sneak over the fence and eat it. It was there one day and gone the next. Thankfully, it was only softball-sized when it disappeared so I wasn’t overly attached to it yet.
It’s a very bad feeling when you nurture a pumpkin for weeks and weeks and then the deer get it before you do. That’s happened to me many times … and not just with pumpkins. It’s precisely why I will never try to grow a record-breaker: If I were to put that much energy into growing something and the deer got it or if I dropped it off the back of the truck en-route to the weigh-in (which is exactly the type of thing that happens to me), I would be in tears.
And so I’ll have to go to the farmers’ market next week to buy our pumpkins, which, in truth, I don’t mind. They have such beautiful heirloom pumpkin varieties there, it is so much fun to pick and choose the ones you want. I’d definitely like to get a warty pumpkin and a Cinderella variety, but we have to get the traditional jack-o’-lantern type, as well. Can’t beat those for carving!
I guess I should just be happy I’m not a colonist. Were it not for their pumpkins, they wouldn’t have made it through the winter. I feel certain I’ll survive just fine without pumpkins of my own.
