Almost by accident, my partner (
We like gardening. I grew up with a mother who was into permaculture. And when Brad was a teenager, he tossed and turned between being an electrician and a landscaper. In the end, he chose an electrical trade, but he funnelled his love of landscaping into building out the entire garden we have on this big block of land.
But we're lazy gardeners.
Our idea of planting new crops or plants of any kind is accepting cuttings from neighbours, or saving seeds from the fruit and veggies we eat.
That's how we ended up with very large pumpkins in our garden: Brad scooped the seeds out of a store-bought pumpkin, chucked them on the ground and hoped for the best.
He may have roughly covered them with whatever mulch was nearby. Or perhaps I did. He may have watered them. Or perhaps I did.
But, like most of the things we 'toss' in the garden, almost the moment they land, we forget about them and move on to whatever is next.
I do think he's marginally better at this than me. I'm good at weeding and pruning. I enjoy those tasks. I find it invigorating to clear away what is no longer needed.
But planting things properly? Or maintaining what's gone in?
Not so great at that!
Thankfully, the pumpkins thrived in the spot we'd thrown the seeds. We got back from our epic 7-week road trip, and after lashings of rain and weeks of blazing heat, the pumpkin plants had taken over the entire garden up the side of the driveway.
There were two varieties, actually: the Butternut Pumpkin pictured in the photo below and a couple of Kents.
Between the sprawling plants that I could tell apart, that appeared to have no beginning and no end, I could see three Butternuts and two Kents.
We've already eaten one and a half Butternuts (we gave one half to our neighbour who thought half was big enough!), and this one in the photo below?
It went to an older neighbour up the road who said an enthusiastic "Yes, please!" when I asked if she'd like one. When I asked if she thought she could use a whole pumpkin of that size (pointed to our pumpkins in our garden), she told me that she "has three families to feed".
I'm not sure who she's feeding, but I'm happy to help with our surplus produce =) What a good reason to have an overflowing garden, hey?
Then we walked it up the hill and delivered it to our very happy neighbour. To my delight, it turns out the Butternuts are her favourite variety. Bonus!
Her adult daughter was also home when we popped by, and she shared how she had tried to grow pumpkins but without luck. I encouraged her to scrape the seeds out of this one and try again. Her eyes lit up with possibility, and I left a happy woman, knowing that maybe the cycle of growth would continue.