The perfect day, the idyllic moment.

I remember the Spring of 1954. I was six. My sister asked me if I would like to grow some pumpkins. I said yes. She gave me some seeds and I planted a hill. I remember getting two sugar pumpkins, one short and fat, the other long and thin. I was hooked. All through grammar school and high school I grew pumpkins. We would go to Maine or New Hampshire on vacation in August, and I could hardly wait to get back and see how the pumpkins had grown. We'd get back after sundown and I would grab a flashlight and go out to see my beautiful pumpkins. They were always much larger than when we left. As you can see from the top right photo, I loved being in the garden tending my pumpkin crop. The other photos, taken in November 1963, show what a bountiful crop I got.

I remember one magnificent plant that spread from the garden into the place where we would later grow raspberries. It produced three large pumpkins on more than thirty feet of vines. I kept one of the pumpkins in the cellar; it lasted for one year from the time it blossomed.

I often won prizes at the town fair, for pumpkins that matched each other in size, shape, and color. I was never able to win a prize for the largest pumpkin, as our soil was not rich, even with lots of manure and compost.

But speaking of compost, my father had a compost heap where he brought the food scraps from the table. We often got potatoes or tomatoes that grew from peelings or seeds. Sometimes we would get pumpkins, and they could get pretty big, thanks to the fertility of the compost. My father had a large sieve-like device that he would put compost on and rub to get the finer particles to drop into the wheelbarrow that the sieve was on. This sifted material was what he would mix into the garden soil. The stuff that didn't fit through? That went back into the compost pile to continue decomposing.

After I graduated from college and moved away, I could no longer care for pumpkins, though I tried. I grew pumpkins and zucchini in front of my trailer seven or eight years ago, and accidentally put too much liquid fertilizer on them. I got 30 zucchini and dozens of pumpkins. Unfortunately, I could not get that liquid fertilizer again, so I took to planting Baptisia (False Indigo) and milkweed there instead. My back yard was never satisfactory for growing pumpkins or squash (not enough sun).

I miss the days when I had access to a nice large garden. I will never again be able to display such a nice pumpkin crop again. I cherish the memories of those days.

Paulh

09.09.24 Front Page

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