From lazy to fun

In general, being lazy is not a good thing. I try not to be lazy, but I have a lazy gene that likes to come out. Well, I blame it on genetics. Because otherwise, it would just be, well, laziness. And lazy, as I said, is not usually a good thing.

We get into Halloween in our family. We already have the inside decked out for Halloween, and the kids (well, Kyle) are champing at the bit to get the outside stuff going. I have decided on October 1 for that.

Last Halloween, as with virtually anyone who decorates outside, we had pumpkins adorning our porch. One would think that once the holiday was over I would have ditched the pumpkins. But, they weren't carved, so I decided to leave them out as Thanksgiving decorations. Well, then it got cold. And I don't like the cold. So, I have to admit, they didn't really get thrown out. Um, ever. Instead, the snow of winter came and they just sort of mushed up in the flower pots they had been sitting in.

Fast forward (or reverse as the case may be) to this past spring. I bought flowers to plant, and I scooped out the top layers of the flower pots, including any remaining pumpkin and seeds. I didn't want to completely refill the pots, so I left much of the dirt, and added some new with the new flowers.

The flowers grew. And darned if those pesky pumpkins didn't leave some of their seeds hidden in the pot. I had pumpkins growing in the pots and overtaking the flowers. So I moved them to the front flower bed that the dogs dig up, so I hadn't planted it with flowers.

I had NO IDEA that pumpkins grew the way they do. By August the patch had taken over literally a third of our front lawn. We'd placed a stake out there to stop it from crossing over on the front walk! (Which is did when we were on vacation, we had to wind it back around.)

They flowered like crazy, but overall we got probably half a dozen pumpkins. A few small and medium, and one big one. I now know a bit more about pumpkin growing, and I should have been thinning them out in a specific way to grow large pumpkins. They also self-planted way too early for Halloween; they should have been planted much later. A project for next year on the property I suppose.

So here are some pictures from our pumpkin journey. They kids really had fun with it, especially the big one. And it was fantastic when we arrived home from Tennessee on July 22 and an explosion of growth had taken place. As soon as we rounded the corner the kids were shouting, "Look at the pumpkins!!! Look, they're across the sidewalk!!"

So sometimes, lazy can turn into good times. ;-)

First pumpkin picked. We were so excited. We had an iced pumpkin cookie recipe picked out and were ready to go. We cut into it and I said, "It looks a little mushy." Then the stench hit me. The thing was rotten with a capital R. Phew!

Lots of flowers!Big pumpkin growing!Today we picked the biggest pumpkin. It's really nice -- one I would choose from a bunch for sale. And, since I saw a bunch out today at the farm markets, I think we'll make it to Halloween with it and be able to carve it.

Fun times!!