Our Volunteer Pumpkin Plant

Gather round, children, and I'll tell you the tale of the Volunteer Pumpkin!

Last fall we had a couple of pumpkins sitting in front of our house. After Halloween was done with, we just left them there to show our 3-year-old son Lando what happens when things decay. It was an interesting experiment, with the pumpkins slowly sinking in on themselves. As things progressed, we could eventually see the pumpkin seeds lying inside the mostly decomposed pumpkin.

Then this spring, when things finally began to warm up, we saw this:

That's right: It's a little pumpkin plant, growing up out of the remains of one of those pumpkins. Cute, isn't it?

Well, look at it now:

It's not so little and cute now! That's our driveway on the left, with the walkway up to our front door on the right. Our volunteer pumpkin plant now requires us to step over it as we come and go!

When I took that picture, I noticed something else. Let me show you:

That's right -- several flower buds! The next morning, as we left to attend the annual Jubilee Olde English Faire near Peoria, there was a beautiful large yellow pumpkin flower there. When we returned home late that afternoon, the flower had closed.

The next morning, as I left for work, I saw another beautiful large yellow pumpkin flower. When I returned home that evening, it had closed.

So this morning, when I saw a third beautiful large yellow pumpkin flower, I quickly went back inside, grabbed my camera, and took a picture:

I also took a closeup. If you look closely, you can see a tiny ant crawling around the stamen. (Click on the image if you want to view it in a larger size.):

So, we weren't planning on having this baby, but now that it's coming, what should we do with it? I've no idea what variety of pumpkin it is. It was just a pumpkin that we bought at the grocery store one day to provide a little bit of fall harvest/Halloween decoration. Can pretty much any pumpkin be used to make pumpkin pie?

Our friend Patty suggested that we harvest some of the flowers to make fried pumpkin blossoms, which she says are delicious. The flowers seem to be arriving one at a time. I'm not sure when you're supposed to harvest them -- just before they open, when they're open, or just after they've closed. Or perhaps it doesn't matter. I'll have to check with her.

Or maybe we'll just let nature take its course and save ourselves from having to use pumpkins from the grocery store as decorations this fall. After all, since we're supposed to be celebrating the harvest, it would make sense to decorate using pumpkins that we grew ourselves!

Comments

[allie]

i think you have to leave the flower on unless it comes off naturally to get the pumpkins. dont quote me on, but im pretty sure.

[Wally Hartshorn]

Yeah, I think the idea is to leave some of the flowers and harvest the others, so that you get larger pumpkins. I sort of like the idea of having a large number of smaller pumpkins, so we've pretty much decided to just leave the flowers alone.

P.S. Interesting blog!

[allie]

thank you! i just remember when i was a little girl, my sister and i got a surprise pumpkin plant, and the squirrels kept eating the flowers off so we never had any pumpkins.

[Wally Hartshorn]

So far nothing seems to be interested in eating anything off of the pumpkin plant. However, we have had something eating off of our tomato plants. Given the height at which it is happening, I suspect it's deer!

[allie]

we kept our tomato and pepper plants in huge pots near the house to keep animals away.

[Wally Hartshorn]

Actually, our tomato plants are in whiskey barrel halves literally just 1 or 2 feet from the front of our house, but the deer around here are fearless! I've seen their tracks in the snow, and they come right up to the front windows of the house. I expect to turn around from the computer screen one day and see one staring in at me.

I haven't posted a photo of our tomato plants yet, so I need to do that soon. You'll see how close they are to the house. Incidentally, we're in the middle of a subdivision; like I said, fearless!