Yes, they may look simple but they are really quite complex....maybe this explains my empathy with them!?
Pumpkin plants are unashamedly rude and sprawl about the place in what seems to be a very macho fashion, growing at a phenomenal rate. They crawl through, in, under, over and across anything in their path. Their size is impressive too, not just the fruit but also their coarse and hairy,umberella-like leaves.
Strangely though, putting their unruliness to one side, I cannot look at a pumpkin patch and not be swamped by thoughts of fairy stories and magic. I mean, don't they look the most absolutely perfect place for fairies to shelter? I just feel there is something definately magical about them. The time of year helps of course...harvest festival...the colours...the nippy edge to the air...the whiff of woodsmoke...cosy dark nights...homemade soup and bread...autumn is a very beautiful season inside the kitchen and out. Ahhh......can't wait now!
Anyway, pumpkins - yes - I become VERY protective of them. It's when they start to swell to bigger than football size that the worry starts - dare you even HOPE you have an established fruit that will swell to gargantuan proportions and not randomly go splat when you are not looking? (I'm sure my blood pressure goes up). When the fruit reaches this size, or just slightly bigger...they should have been turned and supported on bricks or some other support. I am stupid and usually forget this until it is bordering on too late. I never fail to notice this job needs doing unless I am wearing short sleeves and I am afraid that once noticed, this is not a job that can be put off....the guilt is just too much! These fruits must be loved, people. There is no "I'll do it tomorrow," nope. NO.
This year was no exception and once again I found myself enduring the sandpaper exfoliation services from the leaves scraping up and down my forearms, whilst being showered with black flies. Ick. It's undignified too, (thank goodness I was alone).
The pumpkin was sizeable - huggable in fact - this made it very heavy. Couple this with the fact that it was smooth, shiny, slippy, lying on its side and attached to the main plant. My mission - and there was no getting out of it, if I wanted a healthy and evenly shaped fruit - was to turn it on to its base but not only this - nooooo........I also had to lift it onto some carefully placed bricks in order to ensure airflow under the fruit to prevent rotting. I braced myself.
I huffed and I puffed and turned that mother over! I think the veins on my temples were sticking out like fruit jelly worms. There was quite a bit of "Mr Bean" style simultaneous use of arms, elbows, knees and my chin in order to cajole, coax, heave and manouvre the beast onto its podium whilst maintaining the integrity of that precious, life giving main stem.
It feels like diffusing a bomb. I imagine.
I actually had my eyes shut, face screwed up, was holding my breath and still hugging my precious pumpkin.
I squinted through one barely open eye, looking for the top of the pumpkin, where the stem should be attached.
Phooweee...(energetic exhalation required at this point). Yes! I had cut the correct wire - just in the nick of time.
I was angry with myself for causing some (minor, I hoped) damage to the stem and worried for a week that the fruit might die off but so far, fingers crossed, it is still hanging on in there, swelling greedily and apparently in rude health.
I cannnot wait for Halloween and neither can my little girl - honest - and I will be disappointed if I don't need a tarp, four people and a wheelbarrow when it comes to harvest time.
