For the love of pumpkins
“There is a certain slant of light,” wrote Emily Dickinson, and although her poem thematizes oppression, I have always loved that line as it applies to my favorite time of year: autumn. For then, there is a “different slant of light,” the blueness of the sky intensified by the lower position of the sun in the fall. That more intense blue contrasts the ranging oranges of my garden’s pumpkin centerpieces. It recently hit me that this stunning juxtaposition arrives courtesy of fall’s complementary-to-the sky status on the color wheel!
I love everything about pumpkins — their funky and unique forms, their warm unlimited shades of orange, their awkward bumps and warts. They grow on creeping vines with wild tendrils and elephantine leaves, eventually emerging out from under these green umbrellas as if sent by fairies. Or are themselves fairies, the Jack-Be-Littles especially. In mid-summer, their growth outpaces everything else in the garden, even the sprinter zucchini. I unabashedly admit I have a thing for pumpkins. It borders on the scandalous!
SPRING -- preparing for the giants
Fall is my favorite time of year, but my second favorite is spring, as I prepare the soil and sow the seeds for our next fall’s harvest. Larger pumpkins take 120 days to harvest, so May is the time to plant. In Southern California, with Julys and Augusts in the 100’s, it is important to get a head start on the heat.
This year, with our COVID-19 altered schedule, I had a little more time on my hands. Apparently, others did too, I noticed, when examining the decimated remains of the seed racks at Home Depot. My whole community will be reaping what they have sown come summer!
We have this very cool plateau in our front yard, and although it was created for other purposes, it became the pumpkin plateau. It gathers a great deal of attention in the fall, from walkers-by and neighbors, but in the spring, looks a bit abandoned. This year, Dave, his brother and I pulled off the weedblock, they rototilled the soil down deep, replenished with amendment and reset the weed block and updated the drippers. Then I got to plant. I made the mounds and planted a variety of seeds: Dill’s Atlantic, Lumina, Musquee de Provence (seeds courtesy of neighbor Jeff) and re-used seeds from last year’s Cinderella’s Dream. We’ll see how well my seed harvesting worked out soon enough. In the back, husband Dave prepped a new strip next to the yard in the same manner as the front, and I sneak in mini pumpkin patches all over the yard. I wish I could plant the whole yard with pumpkins, but they do get to be quite a mass (mess) of gargantuan leaves and heavy orange giants come late summer.
FALL
I wait impatiently now for the seedlings to emerge, to imagine what surprises might be in store, to image the pumpkin garden in its glory in the fall.
The fall is stunning, even in Southern California, and I wait again, this time for the harvest. It seems so far away, and in the meantime, I will share just a few photos from last year….always hopeful for a bigger better harvest this year.
