Summer already on Victoria Day weekend

Well it is so hot here I am waiting until evening to plant the morning glories. It was too hot to eat lunch on the deck even under the umbrella. I am anticipating a very hot dry summer!

Amazingly, the pumpkins are up already:

There is one at about 1:00 off the end of my left foot. I took this photo a couple of days ago, and by noon today, there were second leaves sprouting, not to mention even more pumpkin seedlings. I am certain they are pumpkins, as they are all the same and in a row. This year, I am going to try to train them to grow over onto the grass to the right, so that I can grow more veggies in the rest of that garden. Herding pumpkins will be a new experience for me.

I need more garden space because, as usual, I went overboard buying seeds. I won a gift certificate to McFayden's Seeds in Manitoba, and my order came on Friday. Herbs, heirloom tomatoes,  nasturtiums, marigolds, beans, morning glories and much much more.The thing is there are fewer seeds per packet than I remember from 25 years ago when I ordered from Stokes. Hmmm ...

But then, there are always garden surprises. Tucked under these strawberries is a chestnut seedling:

A squirrel had to come quite far with the seed - one long block away is the closest chestnut tree. My other two chestnut seedlings, in the compost heap, disappeared mysteriously over the winter.  I think I'll take this one down to PEI for our garden there - eventually.

Thankfully I didn't accidentally weed the phlox while I was planting the pansies and the Engish daisy (to the left) and the rock cress (to the right): 

One year, I enthusiastically pulled up many incipient thistles only to realize too late that I had weeded all the poppies I had planted the year before. Good labelling goes a long way to preventing such gardening disasters.

Speaking of strawberries, I have already eaten five. I had planned to share with my significant other, but somehow, once plucked,  the berries just veered irretrievably into my mouth. They are about a month early this year.

I feel a yen for lemonade so I will close now, brave the heat of the deck and resume reading Eric Metaxis' biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - seems appropriate for a Sunday afternoon.

Cheers ~



The Story of Thomas’s Pumpkin

 

Here is Grandpa Greg removing sod in the pumpkin patch we have just begun to dig. It’s early May.

Here I am putting on my gardening gloves. I narrowly missed some worms when I starting digging!

Whew! We are all done, and now there are four hills. We still need to shovel in the fertilizer from one of those plastic bags. Luckily the shovels are still there! But where is Grandpa Greg?

Here are the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin Daddy carved last year. I kept them cool in the refrigerator all winter, but it is time to plant them. It’s the third week of May now, and the soil is nice and warm.

The seed between my thumb and forefinger is pretty small.

There it goes into the pumpkin hill. You can see there is some black fertilizer on top to help it grow.

It’s early June.  Here are the first leaves of the pumpkins.

Now it’s the end of June and the pumpkin plants are bigger! But where are the pumpkins?

At last a flower! The bees must have been busy pollinating because here is a pumpkin flower with a tiny green pumpkin at its base.

Several weeks later and here is a pumpkin, but it is not ready to pick just yet because it is still too green.

Here we are in September, and this pumpkin is ready to be picked.

Can you see the pumpkin patch? The pumpkins stand out because they are orange! Grandpa Greg and I are getting ready to bring them to Toronto.

Here you are holding your pumpkin! It’s all ready to carve!  Remember to save some seeds for next year.

by Granny Lorna (October 15, 2010)