Friday, September 01, 2006, 21:10
Like a Box of Chocolates
I have decided that Big Max pumpkins are like a box of chocolates -- you never know what you're going to get.
When we plant Jack-o-lantern pumpkins, that's what we get -- Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins.
When we plant acorn squash, that's what we get -- acorn squash.
But when we plant Big Max pumpkins (that can grow to be a couple of hundred pounds) -- well, you just never know.
Some years have more variety in the Big Max than other years.
This year is a good year for variety.
Big Max are *supposed* to be big and orange.
They are not supposed to be small and green with yellow stripes.
They are also not supposed to be medium sized yellow with green streaks.
Or medium sized green with yellow bumps.
Or deep orange with bumps and knobs all over.
Or green with orange spots.
Or small orange pumpkins.
I know how the small orange Big Max got into the patch. A few years ago when we planted Jack-o-lantern pumpkins, there was one seed in the package that was the white pumpkin variety.
Those white pumpkins, I must say, are extremely tough. They grow like crazy from volunteers. We've got three white pumpkin vines growing in the Big Max pumpkins. So, the small orange is Big Max crossed with white.
How the other pumpkins got in there is anybody's guess.
My theory is that the honey bees have been bringing in gourd pollen from someone else's garden and distributing it among the Big Max blossoms. And Big Max must be quite willing to be crossed with gourd pollen. How else would large orange pumpkins turn out to be medium-sized orange covered with knobs and bumps? And how else would large orange pumpkins end up small with green or yellow streaks?
Randy likes growing the big pumpkins just because he likes growing the big pumpkins. He's always hoping for a stellar year with the right conditions so he can end up with a giant pumpkin.
All of the "experts" who grow giant pumpkins, Randy says, advise cutting off the vine beyond the big pumpkin so that the energy goes to the pumpkin and not to the vines and to the smaller pumpkins on the end.
"But if I did that," Randy said the other night, "then we wouldn't get all of the variety in the pumpkins that we are getting. And it's interesting to see what we end up with!"
If the pumpkins are ripe by the time of our fall church dinner, Randy hauls them down to the church parking lot and sells them to make money for the building fund. Whatever is left over comes back to the yard, and I have a fall display of pumpkins. Randy usually carves at least one Jack-o-lantern from a Big Max, too. Plus the Big Max seeds, when soaked in salt water and baked in the oven, make a delicious snack.
This year, the yield of pumpkins will maybe be a quarter to a third of what it has been other years. It was far too dry and too hot earlier this summer, and the pumpkins went dormant for a long time.
But I'm thinking that this year, what they lack in quantity, they will make up for in variety.
It would be fun to know where the gourd pollen is coming from (and who knows, maybe someone in the area is ending up with huge gourds and wondering how *that* is happening). But since honey bees will fly for a mile or two to find pollen, I think it would be difficult to find out where the gourds are. Unless I got very lucky. I have a feeling I would need to make an awful lot of phone calls and do a lot of driving around -- and then I still might not find the source of the gourd pollen.
So for now -- the Big Max pumpkins that are not really Big Max pumpkins will have to remain one of those delightful little mysteries -- just like a box of chocolates.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Thursday, August 31, 2006, 19:39
Growing Like Weeds!
I've got say -- I think sunflowers must be the easiest crop in the world to grow.
Every year, I've got sunflowers growing by the bird feeders.
And in the little garden by the basement.
I never plant any of them. The birds do that when they eat sunflower seeds during the winter.
In fact, this spring, I pulled up countless sunflowers in the garden by the basement. Last year I didn't pull out hardly any of sunflowers, and they sort of took over my little tomato garden. It's not that I don't like sunflowers. But when they grow so thick that they shade out everything else -- even when I keep pulling leaves off them from the bottom to let more sunlight in -- it becomes a necessity to pull some of them out.
This year, I left four sunflowers growing at the edge of tomato garden. I like to have a few sunflowers around because when the seeds get ripe, the chickadees just love them. It's fun to watch the chickadees hanging upside-down from the sunflower heads, eating their fill of sunflowers.
And obviously, sunflowers don't need much water, either, because I have not watered any of the volunteer sunflowers growing around the yard, and they all seem to be doing just fine. And that's in spite of only getting four inches of rain total from April 1 to August 1.
The honeybees like the sunflowers, too. We have lots of honeybees around. They also like the squash blossoms and the Big Max pumpkin blossoms. I didn't see many honeybees while it was so dry, but now that it has rained some, the honeybees have come back.
Then again, now that I think about it, all of the volunteer plants I have ever seen seem to be tougher than plants I have planted or transplanted -- and that includes trees. Volunteer maple trees are much more hardy than maple trees we transplant. And volunteer pumpkins are tough. And tomatoes. And of course, the sunflowers.
So maybe it's not that sunflowers are such an easy crop to grow. Maybe it's that they are prone to starting as volunteers -- and *then* they are easy to grow.
Either way, I've got sunflowers to enjoy. And I didn't have to plant or water a single one!
LeAnn R. Ralph
