Our pumpkins deserve an apology and blue ribbons for effort

Lee and I harvested and weighed my pumpkin crop last weekend, which was about 10 days earlier than usual. If they’d had a little more time to finish growing, I’m sure each pumpkin would have packed on at least 20 more pounds.

Even with the early harvest, though, the future jack-o’-lanterns racked up an incredible 1,857 total. I’ll add a small detail here: Our tabletop scale measures the weight of letters and small parcels for postage, so I’m talking about 1,857 ounces, not pounds. The sad truth is the 29 pumpkins weighed 116 pounds — total. That’s an average of four pounds each. The heaviest (and I use the adjective loosely) was an 8½-pound Mellow Yellow, and the smallest was a miniature two-ounce Rembrandt.

In 2022, a photo of my 363-pound pumpkin crop appeared on the front page of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. That photo marked the highlight of my patchy career as an impetuous gardener. Last year the harvest topped out at 303 pounds, with enough hefty pumpkins to give to our family for Halloween carving, donate to our church’s fall festival, and display my favorites on our front porch and down the front steps. But “hey, no pressure, guys,” I told the new crop of seedlings in early June, before I planted them into three raised beds.

The plants struggled all the way through the growing season, although Lee watered them every evening with a network of soaker hoses. Their failure to thrive was my fault. Even the hardiest plants can’t develop strong root systems if they have to push their way up through dry, rock-hard soil. Lee normally spades and loosens the dirt in our 8x16-foot raised bed before I start planting. This year he was recovering from a severe fall that damaged ligaments in his shoulder, so I took up the garden spade.

The expanse of dirt in the bed looked like five acres to me, and I found out right away that I wasn’t strong enough to break up the heavy chunks of soil or dig long planting rows deep enough for the pumpkins to spread their roots. I also skipped hauling heavy wheelbarrows full of Lee’s homemade compost and working it into the bed, which gives the plants a boost all season. Instead, I settled for adding compost only in and around the planting holes.

I also tried to be too fancy this season, buying mostly hybridized pumpkin seeds, which produce rarer but more temperamental varieties than the classic pumpkins bred to become Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Next year I will restrain myself and forego the Rembrandts, Pink Hearts, Millionaires and Green Eggs ‘n Ham. I’ll rely more on varieties that have been winners for me in past years: orange 20-pound Bellatrix and Mrs. Wrinkles, bright Mellow Yellow, red-orange Cinderella, pearly Moonshine and pastel pink Porcelain Doll.

A week before the Rozen pumpkin harvest, a woman stopped and peered at the big, raised bed, the only one that’s easily visible from the street. She studied the scraggly bare vines and yellowing leaves, turned to me and said, “I see you didn’t plant any pumpkins this year.” I could feel my smile slip, and I resisted the urge to point out the five squash, nearly hidden under their leaves. I started to say there were some good-looking pumpkins in two raised beds, farther back in the garden, but she cut me off. “Uh-huh,” she said and kept walking. Those two smaller beds had been much easier for me to spade, cultivate and fertilize, and they produced nearly all of our healthy, relatively chubby pumpkins.

In spite of my inadequate prep work and a squirrel’s relentless gnawing on their shells, all of this year’s pumpkin seedlings survived. Together, the team of 29, with their shades of orange, yellow, white, pink and green, is on display on our front porch. Each of them deserves my apology and a big blue ribbon for effort.

Craft Rozen has been writing about gardening and family life for 14 years from her home in Moscow. She may be contacted at scraftroze@aol.com.