I have a thing for pumpkins. I admit it. There isn’t any reason for me to grow them, especially the ones that aren’t great for cooking. And to be truthful I do not have enough room to grow gigantic pumpkins. So I can grow big pumpkins. Each year I vow this is going to be the year of my biggest pumpkin ever. And to be honest, each year I do grow a bigger pumpkin. But, nothing giant, not even close.

I bet last year, my biggest pumpkin was close to 100 pounds. I wasn’t smart enough to take any measurements, which I should have, but, I do have pictures to compare year to year.

Well, this year, I thought I would at least try to grow my biggest pumpkin to date. So I bought Dill pumpkin seeds, those are supposed to be the best according to what I have read on the internet. And of course, I believe everything I read online. I started my pumpkins indoors in April under grow lights. And wouldn’t you know it, we had the warmest spring ever! It was fantastic. I transplanted my pumpkin seedlings outside and put cages and covers and did all of the babying that one needs to do when trying to grow giants. And then the cold came. And I mean cold. I lost all but one pumpkin plant during the cold snap.  Still it was early enough in the season that all was not lost, I just sowed  seeds directly in the ground, this was at the end of May. The seeds planted right in the ground soon caught up to the cold snapped seedling and surpassed it in size. All that caring and nurturing was for naught. Blah.

Well, as I stated, I don’t really have enough room to grow giant pumpkins. Well, I do, if I could cull. But, I can’t. I can’t pull some plants out. I just can’t do it. Even when I start 12 tomato plants, knowing I only want two, it breaks my heart when I have to throw 10 seedlings into the compost. I do think I get misty eyed. Seriously. So I didn’t pull any of the pumpkin plants out and now I have a huge mess. It is a jungle out in the patch. I can’t even see if there are any pumpkins growing except...for Prudence.

I could tell right from the beginning that Prudence the Pumpkin was going to be trouble right from the git go. Why you may ask?  Because the vine grew up over the fence and Prudence became a wee pumpkin hanging on the fence. I didn’t clip her off at first, because you never know if these teeny pumpkins will thrive. You have to give them a few days and then see if they are viable. Well, because of my memory, I didn’t check on her for about a week and oops. She had grown. She was probably the size of a grapefruit and there was no way I was going to be able to kill her. For god’s sake she was a pumpkin by then!!!!  How could any gardener take the life of a beautiful baby girl pumpkin? I couldn’t do it.

Well, Prue grew and grew and now she is a good sized girl. The problem is the vine she is growing from grew up over the fence and she was hanging on for dear life. If she got to a decent size, the vine would not be able to hold her. We had to make an emergency platform of some sort to support her and fast! Paul and I looked around and found one of a thousand rolls of fencing we have and put thick cardboard on top, then gently placed Prue on it. It looked good. It looked like it would work. Except, Prue kept growing and now we aren’t sure if the roll of fencing will hold her. And folks, she has a good two more months to grow. Oops.

I started taking measuremen

ts of her around her belly. In one week she has grown 9 inches. Yup. Over an inch a day. I read that the one thing pumpkins love is a ton of water. Well, here in the tundra we have been having storms just about every day to every other day and so Prudence has gotten her fill. She is loving it. I am just hoping that she has some siblings out there. It would really be sad if she was an only child. If there are other pumpkins in the patch we should be able to see them soon, because eventually they should get big enough to pop through the foliage. Or not.

Insanity.

More insanity.