Mrs. Wrinkles, Bellatrix and Cinderella remember the glory days from last year’s 360-pound pumpkin harvest in my garden: two front-page color promos before the end-of-season weigh-in and, afterward, a photo of the entire crop on Page One of the Daily News. The Wrinkles clan produced 91 pounds, Bellatrix and her coven weighed in at 80 pounds, and the jade-green, coral and autumn gold Cinderella pumpkins added fairy-tale charm. The EZ Grow Monsters, however, are still trying to forget the whole thing. Those over-hyped squash, each expected to produce 100-pounders, contributed a total of 29 pounds.
The three divas return for a well-deserved encore in this year’s pumpkin patch, and I’m giving the EZ Grows another chance by planting three of their seeds left over from last year. Multiple plants of 10 new-to-me varieties will also share space in the raised beds, including Dill’s Atlantic Giant, whose seeds were a gift from my son. These pumpkins allegedly can weigh as much as 500 pounds and are known primarily for exhibitions and competitions. As if. So far, my dream team of monster and giant pumpkins has produced the smallest plants in the patch.
I’m growing some varieties because I liked their names or the pictures on their seed packets: pink and blue streaked Colorado Sunset, salmon-colored Australian Butter, red-veined One Too Many, pastel pink Porcelain Doll, blue Triamble, and shrimp-colored Moranga. I also chose ghostly white Lumina, orange and green Troll, and Red Witch for their Halloween theme and planted them near the Bellatrix pumpkins, namesake of the mad witch in the Harry Potter fantasy series.
Most of the pumpkins seem to be thriving, with emerging flowers and dark green leaves, except for a misnamed Red Witch, whose yellowish green leaves suggest Pistachio Witch would be more accurate. After Lee and I noticed ragged chew marks on the leaves of a few plants in different beds, I blamed the neighborhood rabbit. Muttering curses, I stalked it for several evenings as it hopped toward the pumpkin patch. After reading about pumpkin pests, though, I feel guilty about blaming the cute brown bunny. Squash bugs (their actual name) are probably the bad guys. These insects, with flat backs and gray or brown bodies, can fly, but they’d rather walk around on the leaves, chomping as they go. I don’t use toxic insecticides, but I can use a 50-50 mix of water and white vinegar and spray it on the tops and undersides of the leaves. This will involve crawling into the beds to reach the affected plants, so I’m glad I planted the pumpkins in straight rows this year, instead of following my more typical free-form style.
Lee and I compliment and encourage the pumpkins every day, but I’m not pushing them toward competitive glory this year. Feeling pressured to surpass last year’s crop, which weighed nearly a sixth of a ton, would be too much for them — and for me. Instead, I’ll celebrate my pumpkins’ artistic colors and suitably spooky potential as jack-o’-lanterns, and I’ll hope for some quirky surprises. Last year Lee and I discovered a big honker of a pumpkin, so well hidden among its vines that it had bulked up to about 15 pounds before we noticed it. A beautiful, marbled-green Cinderella became a striking centerpiece for our front-porch display. We also found a small pink pumpkin, shaped like an old-fashioned pork pie hat, and another pumpkin that blended perfectly with the orange and gold gaillardia flowers in a tiered bed. Last year’s best in show, though, was a Mrs. Wrinkles pumpkin, whose ample backside ended up wedged between two metal fence slats at the edge of the bed. Quite cheeky, it was. Maybe this year, Atlantic Giant will pull a muscle while trying to escape from Porcelain Doll.
Craft Rozen realized this week that Mrs. Wrinkles and Bellatrix will be the only plain orange pumpkins in her garden. Email her at scraftroze@aol.com.
