Craft Rozen: Pumpkin harvest poundage likely low this year

I’ve been writing this column for nearly 14 years, and readers still say they especially like reading about my mistakes as an impetuous gardener. Don’t worry, I tell them. I never run out of material.

In mid-June, a month later than usual, I transplanted 34 leafy pumpkin seedlings into three raised garden beds and expected they would all set fruit by the end of July. This year’s pumpkin crop might weigh “only” 200 pounds, instead of the 350-pound crop I’d grown the past two years, I wrote, basing that prediction solely on magical thinking.

Soon after the column was published, I realized I was heading toward a virtual face-plant into the pumpkin patch. Even though I’d fertilized them, most of the plants still looked pale green and anemic, with spindly vines. By the first week of September — which is now — they should have been well on their way toward jack-o’-lantern size. This has not happened.

I remembered a morning six years ago, when Lee and I took Sammy, our youngest grandchild, out to the garden to see the pumpkins. A 2-year-old is probably too young to realize that a normal-size pumpkin does not fit in the palm of Grandma’s hand, I told myself. When we reached the raised bed, I had to lift more than a few leaves to find a pumpkin. Sammy knelt beside the bed, peered under the leaf, squinted and frowned. “Tiny punkin. Teeny, tiny punkin.” Lee tried to muffle his laughter with a cough.

“I realize that it’s not a very big pumpkin,” I said with dignity, “but see how round it is?” Eye-roll from Sammy. All the way back to the house, I heard the small person beside me muttering, “Tiny punkin. Teeny, tiny punkin.” Et tu, grandchild?

This season “it’s like deja vu all over again,” as the beloved wordsmith, Yogi Berra, said. Even though they’re watered with a drip system every night, we still have too many teeny, tiny pumpkins. The larger ones seem to feel no urgency to gain weight, either. The Rembrandt pumpkins have developed artist’s block; I’m still waiting for pastel blue and green swirls to appear on their shells. The Pink Hearts are doing well but have grown bulkier in an odd way: lying on their sides like knocked-down bowling pins. A plump Green Eggs ’n Ham pumpkin looked like a winner, until Lee and I noticed a gnawed-off gouge near its stem. We’ve also found tooth marks and ragged scrapes on other pumpkins, courtesy, I’m sure, of the squirrel who lives in our apple tree. That ungrateful little rodent doesn’t need raw squash. It already dines on fallen apples, bird seed and peanuts — unsalted, which I buy to keep its cholesterol in check.

It’s humiliating that the tomatoes I’m growing in patio pots are bigger than some of the pumpkins in my garden. To honor my Tuscan heritage, I plant a different species of Mediterranean tomatoes every summer. This season’s Italian Heirlooms are deliciously sweet and tart, and several weigh more than half a pound. Last year, in the spirit of world peace, I grew Cosmonaut Volkov tomatoes, some of which weighed nearly a pound at harvest. The cosmonauts are back this summer because of their rich, complex taste, ease of slicing and — sorry to brag — my own fluency in the Russian language. I can pronounce two words in Russian: “desk” and “goodbye.” When I finish writing a column, I say, with passion, “Goodbye desk.”

I’m still hopeful that some of the pumpkins will fatten up before Halloween. If they don’t go bankrupt first, the Millionaire pumpkins could top out at 15 pounds each and qualify as giants among this sorry lot. The Moonshines are nicely rounded and glow with a pearly white sheen above dark green leaves. I was particularly eager to grow Red Witch and Rouge, both Cinderella-type pumpkins, and display them on our front porch through the fall until Thanksgiving. But their leaves turned yellow, and the vines started to shrivel soon after planting. None of the red beauties had a chance to reach the pumpkin stage. Maybe this week I should start decorating the porch for Christmas.

Craft Rozen writes about gardening and family life from her home in Moscow. She may be contacted at scraftroze@aol.com.