The Minnesota Farm Woman

Fall is here and it ends a rather mediocre gardening season for me. Oh, I had plenty of broccoli and enough cabbage to make my first batch of sauerkraut. Despite the numerous zucchini plants that I wrote about during the summer, I had only a few to harvest.  There were  more raspberries and black currants than I knew what to do with, and enough cucumbers to feed a small army.  The tomato harvest was fair, but don’t even ask about green beans. I was really proud of my little pumpkin patch, though.  I planted heirloom pie pumpkins, warty pumpkins, and Connecticut Field pumpkins. Minnesota weather apparently does not agree with Connecticut Field pumpkins, because they curled up and died almost immediately. The others were started late and planted in black landscape fabric next to the cucumbers. Much to my surprise, they grew. They not only grew, they thrived.  If you are wondering why a Farm Woman would be surprised that her pumpkins grew, I must confess that my total pumpkin harvest for the last four summers here has been one pumpkin. Not one pumpkin per plant or even one pumpkin per year, but one pumpkin.  Perhaps with that information you’ll understand now why I noted their progress daily. I peeked under leaves and checked blossoms. I counted bees, hoping for good pollination. I crossed my fingers. I sent up a silent prayer.  As summer ended and fall approached, I could no longer step in that area of the garden for fear of crushing the vines. I could see that I had a few pumpkins growing and at least one warty pumpkin that managed in two days to grow up a tomato cage and take it over a Brandywine. But hey,  who needs another tomato plant when you can have a warty pumpkin?  Our frost of last week finally killed the vines. Picking through the garden, I found SIX pumpkins! I proudly carried them in and took a picture, planning to use them for fall decorating and holiday pies.  Today, my friend called and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her to pick up a pumpkin from a nearby farm.  I decided to go along to check out the fall color and it was a good excuse to put off cleaning out the chicken coop.  When we got there, I was totally amazed. This guy had a trailer loaded with pumpkins and squash of all shapes and sizes.  He still had a field full of them, too. We picked to our heart’s content, filling the back of my Escape until we couldn’t squeeze any more in. No charge if we picked them ourselves, he told me with a twinkle in his eye. He and his wife helped us and even threw in a couple of large bags of overripe corn for the chickens and a big bag of rutabegas. I wonder if growing pumpkins and squash is kind of like the story of  the loaves and the fishes; in other words, the more you share, the more you have.  I’m still proud of my six little pumpkins, but I sure do wish I could grow enough to give some away.