I grew pumpkins. I normally plant a few seeds in the ground around October, thinking that nothing will come of it. Oh how wrong I am. The Pumpkin God's laugh at my ignorance. They say to themselves, 'Oh this man is an idiot. He knows not what a single seed of pumpkin can do to his back yard' and then they do some almighty pumpkin retribution on my back yard.
Seriously. What is the evolutionary trigger for pumpkins excessiveness? It is seriously the most insecure vegetable Ive ever come across.
Kill everything around it with its pretentiously massive leaves and hollow stems. Produce a fruit that weighs ten kilograms, with enough seeds to blanket a sandpit.
Not only that, my three seeds that I haphazardly placed in the ground turned into a sprawling mass. It looked like a Dickensian birds eye view of London. Pumpkin edition.
And not to mention the amount of fruits! Three seeds. 32 pumpkins. Big ones. Queensland blue to be precise. Look at the photo of the abnormally growing pumpkin. It grew inbetween this fence. It didn't just decide to die. It decided to kill my fence!
Not only is it a green menace, it is a creeping green menace. It has creeping vine stem mods that wrap around vertical surfaces and climbs up them. It can fruit these huge pumpkins seemingly in mid air and maintain the weight of them. And then when theyre ready to seed, they just fall. Yea no worries. 10kg boulder hurling from the sky. Thanks evolution. The liquid metal version of the Terminator version of vegetables. A fully grown pumpkin vine will stand proud at the foot of a fence, with huge rock like fruit, and still aim to get onto the other side of the fence by sliding a little vine underneath the crack and then flowering a goliath pumpkin some weeks later. Then, it will kill your family...
I picked every last pumpkin. And I have been giving pumpkins to everyone who comes over my place. They have to take it. Some are thrilled. Some are apathetic. Some dont want it. But they take it anyway.
I actually had a fight the other night with a girl coz she didnt want to take one.
'What you dont like pumpkin?'
'I like pumpkin'.
'Then take the pumpkin'.
'I dont wanna take the pumpkin'
'Take the pumpkin'.
It was like the Jerry Seinfeld Space pen episode.
'All I said was I liked the Pumpkin... You know that pumpkin can grow upside down?!'
Wow.. how many pumpkins have you eaten so far? There's a place not far from where I live that do veggie swaps for people like yourself who have an excess of one particular vegetable. I haven't attended one yet but think it's a great idea to avoid 12 months of pumpkin soup!!
ReplyDeleteCheck out this link which has some info on it if you are interested.
http://www.pow.org.au/2011/02/14/newport-produce-swap-or-start-a-new-location/
Hey Beau, Liked the posts on your garden. Especially the pumpkin patch and your espresso rich veges. Have you tasted the pumpkins as yet, who knows a new flavour to go?
ReplyDeleteWell mister, the tuffty grass as a background looks lovely if you ask me (however, I think 50% of the class may use it)! Maybe I have insider knowledge or maybe it's just too many hours of geeking out in front of my personal blog trying to teach myself html so I can do sweet backgrounds and such.....who knows?! I really enjoy the title "Build it and he will cucumber".
ReplyDeleteSerious pumpkins Beau! I have never had a Qld Blue crop that impressive before, Japs yes, but not the Joh Bjelkes...amazing
ReplyDelete