Volunteer Pumpkin

At least three of my friends have volunteer pumpkins growing in their front yards.  They seem to be springing up from the ground just about where their jack-o-lanterns sat last Halloween.  Pumpkins rising up from the dead, it’s so Halloween.

The best pumpkins I ever grew came up from pumpkins that we’d tossed into the compost pile after Halloween.  The chickens were really intrigued and pecked one often to check if it was ready to eat.  The peck marks made for great pumpkin personality and my son ran with it and came up with a great jack-o-lantern that year.  Di had great Halloween pumpkins last year, some ugly prodigy of a sugar pumpkin and a gourd, all warty and weird looking.

I tell my friends to let those pumpkins grow!  They are the talk of the neighborhood.  If they don’t get stolen, we’ll have free pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns.  One rogue pumpkin vine can produce an insane number of pumpkins before frost knock down the vines.  Growing so close to the house, those vines will be protected from those early October frosts.  Sometimes the best things in life are free.