Today, Ivy and Burt are beginning their third annual countdown to Halloween. Whether or not they can manage to show up for all thirty-one days is a good question but they plan to try their best. With the first "risk of frost date" just a week away, the skeleton crew have been keeping a close eye on the garden. That date is usually anywhere from two weeks to a month off so we not too worried.
What would Halloween be without jack-o'-lanterns? All of the four varieties of pumpkins we planted came up and produced a bumper crop of . . . flowers.
A few of them even turned into pumpkins, who knew they started out so fuzzy?
I've moaned too much about the critters who dig up the beds and trash the veggies but somehow, two pumpkins have survived beyond golf-ball size. They're both small, not orange and I'm pretty sure they didn't come from any of the seeds we planted.
I did put in some Jack-Be-Little seeds, thinking the compact size of the plants and their miniature pumpkins would look cute in the raised beds. At first, when nothing came up I wrote them off as just another failure. Then last week His Madness asked what the yellow tomatoes were called. They had sprouted after all, grew up and climbed into the tomato cages where they are masquerading as Brandywines. Very sneaky.
At least there's no problem finding the habaneros.
The dahlias were another autumnal surprise. Last spring I bought about two dozen tubers, when it was time to get them in the ground, half of them were rotten or dried up. It was icky. Of the dozen left, seven actually grew and are just starting to bloom. However, they did grow into spectacular plants and the flowers look more beautiful in real life than they do on the label. Let's hope for a late frost!
Now, it's a wait and see situation. Meanwhile we will be very thankful for all the gardeners out there who are much better at growing pumpkins and dahlias! There's always next year.
Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!
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