Amputating a pumpkin -- Finis

P3 is off life support, discharged from ICU and has been reunited with his family. They do make a handsome trio, don't they?

27 days till Halloween and counting.

Amputating a pumpkin 1

Today, I managed to sever Pumpkin 3's lifeline to the mother ship. In other words, I accidentally cut the vine that connects it to the rest of the GD plant. I was bushwhacking my out-of-control heliopsis (or "yellow flowers" as they're more commonly called) and, oops, it was clipped. Dang. And it was starting to turn orange as fate would have it.

After a few choice words, I accepted P3's mortal blow. Accidents can and do happen in a garden. It is, after all, a jungle out there.

And, of course, even without accidents, a plant's life is essentially transient anyway.

With an silent apology, I gently placed P3 next to the garden waste I would dispose of later and went back to work.

And of course got to thinking. Was it even remotely possible P3 might go from green to orange without root and water? What would happen if he just sat quietly in a warm, sunny spot for a week or so? (Once Junior started to change color, the process went FAST.) Even better, what would happen if P3 somehow stayed hydrated, nourished AND sat in a warm, sunny spot for a week or so?

Curiosity, along with necessity, is a worthy mother of invention. Out came a coffee can, in went water with a generous pinch of plant food. A small flower pot was commissioned to serve as hospital bed, and voila! I started a pumpkin IV. A narrow concrete walk in a sunny corner of the backyard (all the better to absorb and store sunlight) is the temporary ICU.

Pray the rosary. Send a memo to the deity du jour. Make a small sacrifice to the pumpkin gods. For my green pumpkin on life support.

Blooming

An age-old gardening question -- is the garden a sum total of all its parts? Most will answer yes. And it is. Mostly.

That's the beauty of gardening -- the melding of color with texture, hardscape with yard art, long-blooming botanical warriors with short-lived floral flibbertigibbets. It takes time -- and effort -- to arrive at the right balance of color and space.

But there is a pay-off : For me, it's the the end of the day when the garden is almost animated -- a gentle, dusky palette of colors bobbing and swaying gently in a light breeze.

But, recently, I discovered a new pay-off -- dead heading, or the process of picking off dead blooms to encourage new ones. I was dutifully flying through a perennial bed a few weeks back when I accidentally snipped off a healthy bud. I held it in my hand for a moment and, for the first time in a long time, actually looked carefully at a single flower in bloom.

It was a wondrous composition of angle, curve and color -- a type of transient perfection that we can often miss when we look at our gardens as just a sum total.

Turning into a pumpkin 2

It's been a little over two weeks since our little pumpkin plant went to ground. And it's not so little any more.

Leaves are peaking -- well, almost leaning -- over the sides of the whiskey barrel and it's slowly but surely spreading out, testing its boundaries. And we have the start of blossoms -- at least five or so.

I'm proud of my pumpkin nurturing. At the recommendation of a dog-walking friend, I water about every other day (seems the cherry tomatoes are liking this too) and will give it another round of plant food tomorrow. So far, so good, and so much bigger.

However, I must confess to a little mental "gulp" this a.m. I stopped in and had a quick cup of coffee with friends while walking the dog. They regaled me with the story of their year of the pumpkin-- when one plant took over a flower bed, grew over a fence and proceeded to take up residence in the neighbor's yard.

I'm looking at my pumpkin plant with new-found respect.

Seed sack

This spring, early March I'd say, I hung a seed sack in the backyard cherry tree with a goal of increasing avian diversity around our house.

Quail visit occasionally in the fall, as do flickers. A Cooper's hawk made a brief appearance this winter, considering the possibility of turning our hanging birdfeeder into his own personal bird buffet. And, of course, the robins gloriously return each spring. But at the end of the day, our backyard is basically a year-round crash pad for sparrows -- dozens and dozens of them.



House sparrows. Song sparrows. Chipping sparrows. You name 'em, we got 'em. But as much as I enjoy their frenetic activity and garrulous personalities -- and enjoy it year-round, I might add -- it just seemed like we could do better in terms of bird diversity in our backyard. Hence, the seed sack.

A seed sack is just that -- a sack o' seeds. Well, actually a sack of nyjer thistle seeds. It's the preferred grub of finches, juncos, pine siskins -- evening morning doves! Cool. Doesn't get much more diverse than that, does it?

So up went the seed sack. And there it hung, week. . .after week. . . after week... after interminable week. No feathered takers.

Until about three weeks ago. Standing at the kitchen window, I caught a flash of bright yellow cut through the cherry tree, perch on a branch and inspect the seed sack warily. A second later, he hopped on board, sampled the goods -- then flitted off. A male American goldfinch!


Apparently the avian restaurant review was favorable. The goldfinch came back with his lovely bride the next day. Plus a few friends.

We are off to the races. With goldfinches -- and seed sacks.

Turning into a pumpkin

A departure from our usual spring traditions: We are NOT planting tomatoes this year. (Well, at least not the big boys -- cherry tomatoes, Sweet 100s to be exact, did made the cut.) Based on the dismal results of summers past, we are conceding defeat -- the growing season is too short. . . our "tomato spot" isn't perfect. . . and we can support the local economy by buying fresh at farmers markets (not too mention mooching off generous family members with far better and extensive vegetable gardens).

But what to do with that extra whiskey barrel? Damn. An empty patch of dirt in my garden is truly an offense against nature.

The answer presented itself at a local nursery last Sunday as I was picking up bedding plants for my pots -- of course! why not? eureka! A pumpkin. What could be more satisfying than watching this humble, tiny little plant transform itself into fat blossom and sinuous vine, then robust orange orb ready for carving at Halloween? Sold.

Until I hauled out my Sunset Western Garden Book:

PUMPKIN (cucurbitaceae)

"Fruit varies in size" -- Uh oh. Note to self -- check tag. Do we have a "Wee-B-Little" (please, God) or "Atlantic Giant"? Tag is no help whatsoever, so on to the Internet. A quick search tells me "Orange Smoothie" is an award-winner, children will be infatuated, weighs in at 7 to 11 pounds -- and one plant produces 3 to 4 pumpkins. Perfect -- two for the front porch , with a couple left over for 7- to 11-pound hostess gifts this fall.

"A single vine can cover 500 feet" -- Uh, right. We're talking a whiskey barrel here, tucked in the far corner of a urban backyard -- not a naval shipyard. This could be interesting.

"Vining pumpkins -- plant deep in hills 6-8 feet part / Bush pumpkins -- plant in rows 3 feet apart" -- Ha! How much space does one little old plant need? I say, Pull up your pumpkin party pants and be happy in your 36-inch wide barrel.

"Pumpkins are ready to harvest 90 days after sowing, when shell has hardened. Pick after first frost kills the plant." -- Ooh, the pumpkin end game is kind of harsh. Plant dies, hack off the fruit, bake it or carve a face in it. Somehow, this feels right for Bermtopia.