Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Pumpkins on the porch and Christmas in the bag


Okay, so I know Halloween is over. I've taken the witch off my porch, the light-up bats out of the trees, I even took down my favorite decoration - the skull door knocker that sings songs until his eyeballs pop out. Literally. I love that guy.

But one thing I haven't been able to do is take the pumpkins off the front porch. Maybe it's because I can justify them - well, they're a symbol of the harvest, and we haven't had Thanksgiving yet, right? Never mind that they're probably frozen to the front stoop by now.

Still, I think the real reason the pumpkins have survived is, well, because they made it through a season in my garden. That means they ARE survivors. For those of you who haven't heard me rant about my garden, let's just say it's usually the place where plants go to die. I've killed tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, three kinds of peppers, onions, strawberries watermelons and a particularly hardy lavender (Someone told me it would ward off rabbits and deer. Ha! They just saved it for dessert).

This year, I planted pumpkin and watermelon in the main garden. Almost immediately, the pumpkin vines ran all over the watermelon. I didn't care because it meant something, anything was growing in the garden. Yeah, just call me Martha Stewart. In the end, we had five - count 'em - five pumpkins this fall. It was the first successful gardening year ever. (As long as you don't listen to my husband when he questions exactly what happened to the tomatoes, peppers, watermelon and strawberries.)

We carved two of the pumpkins. The kids glued sequins all over another one. But the last two are still looking plump and gorgeous on the porch. So, as far as I'm concerned, they can stay. Sure I passed them yesterday going into the house with a bag full of holiday-themed books.

Which gives me an idea...Christmas pumpkins, anyone?

4 comments:

Brandy said...

You could start a new trend! My garden didn't do well this year, either. My tomatoes died, the strawberry plant didn't produce and when it did something got to it before we did. But, our watermelon vines took over. It tried to take over my rose bush!
I say enjoy those pumpkins. Heck, it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly confident we're going to have to decorate our Christmas tree with pumpkins. My toddler is literally OBSESSED with pumpkins.

I know we can get away with the pumkins there for now because they're totally appropariate for Thanksgiving (as long as they're not carved), but I have a feeling she's going to insist on having them stick around through December, too. So I figure we might end up making pumpkin snowmen. :)

Angie Fox said...

Hey, you've got to keep the kiddos happy. Pumpkins all around! I'll never forget when my daughter was about three and saw the Christmas tree for the first time. We sat watching the lights and I was all warm and fuzzy, remembering how I used to sit for so long and watch the lights as a kid. Then she says, "Mom...I'll bet I could climb that."

Angie Fox said...

And Brandy, is it sad that I'm almost glad to hear of your tomato/strawberry demise? It seems like everyone I know had great gardens this year. I just couldn't quite pull it off.