Usually I wait until first frost to get the pumpkins off the vines but this year I decided to go on what turned out to be the first day of fall.. The picture above is the pumpkin that was in the tree area next to the gas meter.. This variety is one of the several giant that are available.. There were two at the local seed dispenser aka Walmart.. They went into the ground the week after Memorial day.. Sometime that week.. I originally wanted to plant four.. Turns out I planted more than that mostly because.. Well I suffer from what is commonly called DUMB.. And it can hit me at the most inopportune times, and the day these got planted I had a brain fart the size of Texas hit me..
A comparison of the pumpkin from the tree next to the one that is in the yard.. It's hard to say these were from the same vine.. They might have been..
The bottom side of the pumpkin from the tree, not quite complete but who knew?? My biggest fear was vine rot on this one.. I could only feel down so far and I never felt rot there.. How big is it?? How much does it weigh?? It weighed enough that every time I walked by it my arms had that tearing of shoulder and elbow sound that we all love to hear... I could hardly wait to lift this bad boy up and move it.. I would say it weighed ... oh let's just say A LOT..
The whole of the lot except for the three that were accidentally knocked off the vines in August.. Eight pictured here.. Plus the three in front makes.. Well... You do the math, my toes are covered and that screws up the calculator..
Beauties all.. except for the pimply ones..
Now how to prepare the seeds.. I'm looking at trying something different. Last year I marinated them in various hot sauces my brother had given me for Christmas the previous year.. This year I'm not sure what we will do.. I figure we still have a few weeks until they will be carved.. Carved?? Well last year my nephew wanted to carve them and we let him.. And that lasted for two of the five we had.. You have to realize, these are not carving pumpkins because the walls are thicker than the kind you buy to carve them.. These things can be huge with record sizes that can be had, some in excess of three hundred pound.. These didn't get that large mostly because the got hailed on, tearing the "solar panels" to shit in July.. I was completely surprised when they set on as much as they did and grow as well as they did.. They started getting attacked by bugs, by the weather, and in the pumpkin patch proper it looked like some one let their dog romp through there.. But the pumpkins were fairly resilient and grew anyway.. The pictures of the vines in earlier entries showed these plants love to grow EVERYWHERE.. I actually would have traded and just had five pumpkins if they would have been huge.. Ten is the best I've ever had, ten true pumpkins, the other three are small and might not make seeds at all.. Seeds are the only reason I grow pumpkins for.. If you want one of these big guys you can have one but I want the seeds, and if you don't carve it bring it back after halloween and I will carve them..
Badge Henry
(P.S. I was trying to get the vines taken care of.. the main reason I took the vines apart yesterday was we get this letter in the village bill that has the water/sewer/trash collection and they made mention through the summer for people to keep their yards under control IE keep the weeds trimmed.. This seemed like it could easily be pointed in my directions so after the last one I thought if they could wait until nearly the end of the month I would comply.. Trouble is some of those weeds are like trees and might be easier to cut down with a chainsaw.. I cut some of the pumpkin vines and put them in the compost tumbler.. Mowed some of the weeds/vines down and put them in the compost tumbler.. Todays entire mowing was placed in the tumbler as well.. It will take three days for it to leave the packing state it is in right now..
So when is the first frost going to happen?? Well it could happen any day now.. i've looked and first frost could be around the tenth of October.. However they have a celebration near here and the last two or three years it has turned off cold enough to frost so.. My bet would be that weekend, the first weekend of October.. Oktoberfest).
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