I've decided we have to grow pumpkins every year. This is the most exciting plant I've ever seen. The vine is lovely, with all its spirally sprigs popping out everywhere, the broad dark leaves make a neat canopy, and the huge flowers are such a brilliant orange color. For a while, all of the flowers were male flowers, so they just fell off and no pumpkins grew underneath, but I loved the vine even then. And now that it has a few female flowers, one of which is already making a sizable pumpkin... well, it's basically the coolest plant ever. Also, it has long since spilled over the side of our raised bed and is slowly taking over that quadrant of the back yard. Kent is pretty thrilled. He wants to check on it every day, and the pumpkins do not disappoint; they get visibly larger overnight, so there's always progress. When the kids are a little bigger, it would be really fun to measure and weigh the pumpkins each day and chart their progress.


See these amazing blooms? Our bees have never been happier.


This is the first pumpkin as of about a week ago.


Here's the same pumpkin as of this morning. It's bigger than my hand, and the outside is kind of furry. I have no idea how big it'll get before it turns orange, but I'll try to post a pumpkin update.

When I made pumpkin ravioli a few months ago, I made up a little song to get Kent interested in trying it. As with most new foods, though, he is more excited about the idea of it than the actual eating of it. Still, he talks about making his pumpkins into pumpkin ravioli. And to make his parents melt, when he sings the song, he says, "rabioyi." Oh, how I adore three-year-old speech. Considering the fact that we have pumpkin in the freezer from last year, and we got two pumpkins from the pumpkin patch this weekend, I see many pumpkin delicacies in our future. Perhaps there will be pumpkin gifts for family at Thanksgiving, if they're ready by then.

Labels: flora, kitchen adventures

• posted by erica 10/15/2010 10:12:00 AM
•