Seminole Pumpkins + My Wild Garden

There are a few things I grow every year;and I must grow them for therapeutic purposes. I have to grow tomatoes, melons and watermelons, rapini and pumpkins. Pumpkins are a definite must have because they: 1. Do super well in my yard for some reason, 2. I LOVE the different varieties, 3. They are a fascinating species to watch spread out in your yard, 4. Pumpkins are the perfect winter food.

So this year, I grew Seminole Pumpkins. Out of all of the varieties I've grown so far, this is my favorite. Absolutely. My harvest is going to be through the roof!

My little pumpkin patch is no longer little. I've had to train the vines so they don't climb over the house or spread into the neighbor's yard.

The productivity of this variety is AMAZING!! From the time they started producing the first fruits back in July or so up until now, I keep finding new pumpkins. I think I counted at least 5 new pumpkins growing this morning. As the weather has started to cool down, the productivity has ramped up like you wouldn't believe, but that is also the case for my other vegetables.

You can see the little baby pumpkin to the right with the blossom still attached. 

This variety can be trained to climb since the pumpkins aren't huge, which is great for storage especially if I'm expecting to get at least a couple dozen pumpkins this year.

The vines invaded my sunflower bed earlier in the month and this guy showed up. I can't wait to see how well these store for the winter and to see the final yield!!

Other things happening in the garden:

I've had some trouble with flea beetles this year and it's only been in the last month. I've never had flea beetles and then all of a sudden they've been turning my crops into Swiss cheese. I don't know if it's because the weather has cooled off but I've also suddenly have had issues with cabbage worms. I hadn't seen cabbage worms in the spring this year nor throughout the summer and then end of August up until now, the worms just started showing up. Ugh. But anyway, I've started my fall planting. I finally got the timing right for my bok choi and rapini (I think I've always planted too early or too late for the rapini).

This is my bok choi. I've actually already harvested and ate four. So good right out of the patch!!

My favorite, rapini! I threw some seeds in the bed after I transplanted my original seedlings and they've been doing exceptionally well this year, minus the flea beetles. I can't wait for a harvest!!

The ginger and turmeric are doing amazingly well. I'll have to bring them into the house at the end of this month.

Some weird developments in the garden:
I absolutely love allowing the garden to do whatever it wants. I love seeing how new vegetables that I'm growing respond. So this year, I tried growing luffa gourds. As I understood it, they are tropical plants but my luffa has started to flourish NOW. What??!!

I've been waiting all summer for these plants to do something, anything and NOW they're starting to climb my wonky trellis. Go figure.

In the same bed, early in spring, I tried to grow kale without much success. I cut down my kale and dumped compost on top of the remaining stalks expecting the plants to just die and compost down. WELL.... was I wrong!

The kale came back and looks much healthier than when I initially planted them in spring. I'm hoping I'll be able to do this every year now! A double crop without having to start new seedlings will be a dream!

I've also been composting via the lazy way by burying my vegetable waste directly in the beds. Every year I rest several beds for the spring season and I thought to get an early start to compost directly in the bed. Surprise!!!! Now I have melons growing...

I love my wild and unruly garden. This season has been hard since I didn't get the expected yields of veggies and fruit. I was hoping to get a nice crop of tomatoes and didn't, I never got a crop of collards. It's just been disappointing. Now that the weather is cooling off, I hope the fall crops produce much better for me. Despite the disappointing harvest, the little critters in the garden have been happy, except for the bunnies that have been plagued by hawks. We've gotten a nice population of bees and bumblebees, and FROGS!!

Happy Fall!