The air turned crisp this week and, for the first time all summer, I layered a light jacket over a henley top for my morning walk with Duffy. Our wavy-coated Bernedoodle puppy and I love the cooler weather, but I’m worried about the early frost predicted for next week and how it might affect the three dozen pumpkins in our garden. I’m counting on them to prove that last year’s 360-pound crop wasn’t just a pity prize from the Garden Goddess after a decade of humiliation. I didn’t realize how competitive I am until Lee and I spent a morning at the Latah County Fair last week and checked out the prize-winning pumpkins. Until recently, my own crops of undersized squashes would have been lucky to win a collective “Are you kidding?” note from the judges, scrawled on a paper napkin.
We took a zigzag route through the fair’s exhibition hall to find and admire our grandchildren’s and son-in-law’s creative LEGOS, photography, woodworking and Potato Family entries. At the quilt show, we studied the detailed handwork on a beautiful entry, which depicted the symbolic flower of each of the 50 states. In the poultry barn, a fancy rooster with a shiny coat of black and gold feathers and a shaggy bouffant topknot reminded me of a British glam-rock star. Next door in the bunny barn, I wondered if a magnificent 20-pound Welsh rabbit named Pele weighed more than most of the pumpkins in my garden.
My internal butterflies started fluttering when Lee and I reached the long tables reserved for the pumpkin competition. The pumpkins at the fair would be a chance to compare those proven winners with the 36 pumpkins in my own garden, whose seeds I chose based on their unusual names and Halloween-inspired colors and shapes. Lee and I moved slowly down the aisle, pausing whenever I spotted a pumpkin of the same variety that I’m growing at home.
Lumina, with its glossy ivory skin and well-defined lobes, looked like an identical twin of my white pumpkins, which seem to glow among the orange ones in our garden. One Too Many, tracings of red lines on a round, white shell, is a pumpkin-style version of a bloodshot eye. The three matching pumpkins I’m growing have the same red lines, but yellower skin, suggesting the late stage of a dissolute life. The county fair’s prizewinner is cool and quirky; my jaundiced trio are morbid and, therefore, perfect for a Halloween themed garden.
Like the three in my own garden, the Troll pumpkins at the fair featured a murky blue-green base, brightened with pink splotches. Several odd-shaped entries reminded me of a special pumpkin I grew last year: an orange round-bottom with a distinct cleft. I named it Cheeky, and it might have earned an R-rating at the fair if I’d been bold enough to enter it for competition, which I was not. I also noticed, with a wee bit of smugness, that no one had entered a Red Witch, Bellatrix or Mrs. Wrinkles, my pumpkin-patch version of the Weird Sisters in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
I felt proud that my pumpkins could have been contenders — until I reached the end of an aisle, turned the corner and nearly toppled onto a massive blob of a pumpkin. It might have been a Dill’s Atlantic Giant, the world’s largest pumpkin variety, or my own nemesis, an EZ Gro Monster which, in theory, can top out at 100 pounds. No matter which variety it was, the farmer needed a rolling cart to transport the beast. In May I planted three Dill’s Atlantic Giants seedlings, each of which has grown one short vine and no fruit. Only one of three EZ Gro plants has produced a pumpkin and, like its predecessors, it’s the size of a softball and can balance neatly in the palm of my hand. Competition would be too much pressure. If I need a monster pumpkin to bulk up to more than 10 pounds or my beautiful Red Witch to win best of show, I could lose the impetuous joy I find in gardening. So next September Lee and I will wander the fairgrounds, admire other gardeners’ pumpkins and save our favorite stop for last: the food truck with the huckleberry ice cream cones.
Craft Rozen wonders if the Garden Goddess has met the Weird Sisters in her pumpkin patch. Email her at scraftroze@aol.com
