Friday, October 9, 2009

Pumpkin Season

After two weeks of rain, rain, rain we finally got a couple days with sun. Sara and I have been feverishly harvesting the remaining veggies in the garden - eggplants, peppers, herbs, chard, winter squash and - mostly - sugar pie pumpkins.
We only planted about 6 hills, but they produced 147 perfect little pumpkins!
The range in size from 3/4 pound to 2 pounds, the smallest the size of a softball and the biggest about the size of a slightly deflated volleyball.
Last night, Sara spread them all out in the dining room to cure. My FB friend Sue, who is an expert farmer, spreads her pumpkins and squash out on newspapers in the sun to harden up --covering them with a sleeping bag at night if there is risk of frost. With so much rain -and snow forecast tomorrow - we decided to bring them in the house instead. I'll have a fan gently blowing on them for a couple days.
The pumpkins and a few squash and gourds now cover the table and outline the dining room floor. Can't wait to make these babies into pies and soups and roasted veggies...
Last night we got a hard frost, so we can finally be totally done with tomatoes!

3 comments:

Becky said...

Wow!!! All those pumpkins from just 6 hills! How many plants do you think grew from each hill?
Do you plan to try to sell any pumpkins at the Farmer's Market?

Marie said...

they're gorgeous (and tasty) -- and if thought canning tomato's was long --- just wait....

katiegirl said...

Great job on the pumpkins!!! That's awesome! I'm jealous. I planted some pumpkins a little late in the season, and ended up with 1 pitiful orange thing that didn't look anything like the varieties I planted. :D