The Great Pumpkin Experiment Begins

Since we have the greenhouse this summer, I have done more gardening this year than I ever imagined I would.

Every spring I have the same visions of grandeur. I’m going to have gorgeous flower pots on the patio, a thriving vegetable garden, and fresh produce growing everywhere. Birds, butterflies, and bees will flutter around while woodland creatures cheer me on. It’ll be like something straight out of a Disney movie.

Reality usually looks a little different.

About two weeks into the adventure—after pulling weeds a few times, getting bitten by bugs, and losing a couple of plants—I lose interest. At that point the garden becomes Ray’s chore…or we simply apply Darwin’s Theory of Survival of the Fittest. Whatever plants can survive my sporadic care earn the right to keep growing.

This year has actually been different.

I’ve spent a little more time in the garden, and we’ve harvested tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, and jalapeño peppers. We even have a couple of cantaloupes and one watermelon growing on the vine. My patio flowers are still alive, and it’s already mid-July! We did lose the yellow squash and zucchini, but I’m choosing to overlook those minor gardening setbacks.

To be fair, Ray deserves most of the credit. He’s the one who reminds me to water the garden—or more often than not, he just starts watering and I eventually wander outside to “help.”

With all of this success under my belt (haha), Iyan and I decided it was time for an even bigger adventure: pumpkins.

After much debate, we settled on one packet of giant pumpkin seeds and one packet of jack-o’-lantern pumpkin seeds. Against all odds, four little plants actually sprouted!

Now comes the hard part.

You’d think that with 150 acres we’d have endless places to plant four pumpkin vines.

Not exactly.

They need to be close enough that a lazy gardener (me) can easily drag a hose to them. They need to be somewhere I’ll actually see them every day so I remember they exist. They need plenty of sunshine. And perhaps most importantly…Ray still has to be able to mow the hay without accidentally turning our future pumpkins into compost.

Finding the perfect spot to plant is much harder than growing the plants.

Right now I’m leaning toward planting them where the squash used to be. The only thing giving me pause is wondering whether planting pumpkins where squash failed is somehow tempting fate.

I have absolutely no idea how this pumpkin adventure is going to end. Best-case scenario, we’ll be carving our own jack-o’-lanterns this fall. Worst-case scenario, the deer, the bugs, or my gardening skills will have other plans.

Either way…there will definitely be another story to tell.

After all, this Great Pumpkin Experiment is just getting started.

Have you ever planted something that completely surprised you—or stubbornly refused to grow no matter what you did?

With love & glitter,

Valerie ✨