You work hard to grow pumpkins in nice hills, with a nice clear space around them…
…and yet, a vine growing out of the compost pile yields way more than all your careful efforts!
40 pumpkins, all from the vine(s) that came from our compost pile in the spring.
265lbs of pumpkins. Come on. That’s ridiculous.
Now we have to hope they taste good, as I generally only saved seeds from pumpkins that were delicious, and composted the pumpkins that were bland.
I guess I need to stop doing that, and just plant the bland pumpkin seeds, knowing they won’t do much, while composting the great-tasting pumpkins so they grow huge yields on accident.
I joke about growing pumpkins this way in a video from last month:
You can see the vine that made all these pumpkins in that video as well.
It’s pretty ridiculous how these accidental pumpkins always grow better than the intentional ones.
I won’t complain, though. As a commenter notes: “Five pounds of pumpkin per week for a year. That’s a good healthy amount of pumpkin, even for your family!”
Not bad at all.
UPDATE:
I just finished a video on these pumpkins:
Hide and seek!
P.S. This morning’s accompaniment – a beautiful performance of Palestrina.
3 comments
I used to depend on squash growing out of the compost heap. Potatoes too, back when I figured store bought ones were more convenient and I tossed them when they got leggy.
My favorite compost pile volunteer was a yellow Korean melon, Chamoe, which loves hot monsoon-like summers and is not supposed to do well in the dry summers we have here. A damp compost heap apparently was the best place ever to get them growing
That is super cool.
Perhaps that is the reason they’re still a landrace: they defy attempts at selective breeding!
I planted Seminole pumpkins this year from seeds I saved 2 yrs ago… so nothing left to go in the compost. I was really surprised by the high germination rate with old seeds. Can’t see that anything whatever has been selected for. Got just over 20 pumpkins (lost count, gave away some, cooked several, you know…) before the heat and dry and caterpillars got the vines. So far, they all taste great, but the only things I was selecting for were smooth rinds and how long they stayed good on the shelf. Dunno about shelf life yet, but I didn’t get any deeply ridged ones this time around so… partial success? Maybe? Size runs from 14oz to a modest 3.9lb. Surpassed all expectations.