I took this photograph a couple of weeks ago from my deck. Sure enough my pumpkin patch started to take over my backyard.
I had tons of blossoms but no pumpkins. Apparently, according to my friend Fran, you have to do some work helping them pollenate which I had no idea you had to do. No wonder I wasn't getting any pumpkins growing!
But then we had my mother-in-law over for Thanksgiving dinner and she wanted to see my entire garden and we found this:
A wee pumpkin! Now it probably will not end up being a real pumpkin by Halloween but at least there is a small success story to this backyard experiment.
I really wanted to have a ton of pumpkins for Halloween but I just started too late. Oh well, I tried! And asking me to be a sex therapist to pumpkins is just too much for me. Glad we had a miraculous pumpkin despite my neglect and gardening ignorance.
8 comments:
hehehe, sex therapist to the pumpkins! yeah, that is not a title I would be looking for either. One is better than none and you may get to carve something on it yet.
~Dawn
I've had pumpkins with no sex therapy involved:)I think the key is geeing them into the ground mid May.
And now you can repeat every farmer's mantra: NEXT YEAR!!!!!
cute wee one there...how do you help with the ahem pollenation?
You never know Dawn! :) Shelagh, as Debra says, next year for sure! Anne, I have no idea, something about cross pollination which is way more complicated than this ignorant gardener can take. Oh well, one cute little tiny pumpkin is fine by me. Better than none!
Aw it's so cute! I'll have to try growing some next year.
I had a similar problem with squashes one year. Lots of buds but not fruits. A neighbor told me I had to help...what? He suggested that I take a Q-tip and get a little pollen on the end from one blossom and transfer it to another blossom and vice versa. Or to find the boy blossoms and gather some pollen from them and transfer it to the girl blossoms. Only problem was...I didn't know which were the boys and which were the girls lol.
Yes a cute little wee one for sure. Well now you have lots of time to research and prepare for the next crop. I guess I must have had the same issue with my gourds, lots of blossoms but no fruit. Oh well, I'll be doing some research too, maybe we can compare notes LOL!
I attempted to grow pumpkins this year and actually got one, but an animal ate it along with my other squashes.
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