This year, growing goodies in my pumpkin patch turned out to be an interesting and fantastic idea! There were also many lessons to be learned along the way.
First off, I’m only really interested in growing two kinds of pumpkins. Not very creative, I know, but that’s all I want. I grow Sugar Pie pumpkins and Jack-o-Lantern ones. This year, in that smallish space, I planted 6 of each kind, totaling 12 plants. That’s an awful lot all in one place. Two kinds of pumpkins are really not supposed to be grown side by side, for fear of cross pollination. I’m not looking for the perfect pumpkin, a slight variation between the two is fine by me. I also pay close attention and make sure I hand pollinate each female flower right away anyhow, so hopefully I do pretty good in getting the real deal out of it. However, having so many plants in such a small space made it impossible to figure out which kind of male flower I was matching to which kind of female… So this year, for all I know, they can be a 50/50 mix of each and not one original pumpkin in the batch.
Growing so many pumpkins had another disadvantage. Pumpkin plants get huge. When those leaves get to the size of elephant ears, they really crowd out anything else in the patch with them. Some of my plants did well under the leaves for a while. The peppers really liked having the leaves from the pumpkin vines to filter the sun while they were still tiny and weak. But after a while, those peppers really craved the sun with no shade, and it was a struggle for them.
I grew plenty of greens this year as well. Problem was, I grew too many, and not in shifts, but all at once. Many of them bolted before I could do anything about it. Spinach bolts extremely easily and grow very fast. Out there in the patch, they grew well before the pumpkins were available to provide them some relief from the sun. I barely got anything out of the many plants.
The kale, on the other hand, is sturdy and took extremely well to the patch. We harvested loads, which I washed, chopped, and froze or I cooked in batches of Zuppa Tosacano soup. There is still more out there to be harvested. Some of it went to waste, but that was mostly due to stress in my personal life giving me limited time out in the garden.
I did specifically leave some lettuce out there to go to seed. I have no idea what I’m doing as I try to collect the seed, but we’ll see what happens. Speaking of letting things go to seed…. I tried to grow cauliflower out there. Some plants seem to have disappeared entirely, but one went straight to seed instead of providing an edible head to harvest. Sooooo…. Just for fun, I’m going to let it die and dry out there so I can try to collect seeds to play with for next year.
Also in the patch are two artichoke plants. These were a fun experiment. I assumed I’d plant them and have artichoke to harvest, like most other vegetable plants. SURPRISE! That’s not how artichoke works. They are a permanent plant. Fine by me! They start small for a few years and then get bigger and bigger each year. I actually would have given up, but my neighbor to the west is growing some and explained to me that her plants are 3 years old. OH! Good to know.
Asparagus, another item I’m attempting in the patch, is much like artichoke… you aren’t going to get anything out of them for a couple years. Sadly I only had one out of like 12 root sets take and sprout a fern. The one fern, when it sprouted, nearly got pulled as a weed until I took a closer look. (Whew!) I think next year I’ll replant some of them, and add some of the lovely purple ones I had seen this year. I’m told they are slightly sweeter.
I planted corn out there, and mammoth sunflowers as well, but it seems I did so too late and accidentally bonsai’d them. That is to say, I have mini versions… VERY MINI. Nothing edible, but kinda cute.
As mentioned earlier, I have several pepper plants out there as well, but they are struggling. I removed the leaves covering them a while ago, but I think part of the problem is I don’t know much about growing peppers. (Last year I got one bell and 5 jalapinos out of like 8 plants. So I guess we’ll just have to see. Peppers I really want to get good at, so I’m very sure I’ll be trying again.
So I guess my next step is, what will I do next? Well, I have much to do still. To start, the pumpkins are still going strong. I’ll work on harvesting the first ones here soon, because I don’t think they’ll want to hang out there much longer…. I had ones last year that got eaten by slugs and snails once they ripened. Seems ripe pumpkin attracts those critters more so than the Sluggo. However, as those start to become less productive, I’ll start cutting back the plants. I’m already pulling plants that are past their prime and not to be left for seed. (Compost is a good thing.)
Eventually there will be very little left, and it will be time to get some heavy work done. This winter, I’m going to have garlic in the ground. To do that, I’m going to have to rake back some of the wood mulch that is currently in place and work the soil some. (Being careful of the artichokes and asparagus out there. Reminder to self, ask S at the community garden how they can grow stuff every year and not kill the soil.) I want to work some compost and a little more topsoil into the patch, keep nutrients in the soil, and keep the soil texture good. Plus, at the beginning of the summer I had planted several garlic cloves, but haven’t seen anything of them, so I want to be careful in case there are dormant garlic plants out there.
Once the soil is ready, I have onion starts and 6 types of garlic I’m going to plant and mark. On top of that I’ll layer about 6 inches of mulch to keep everything cozy over the winter. If I plant them strategically, they’ll be ready for digging up while the pumpkin plants and others are just going to start needing room next spring/summer. That’s a lot of nutrients to pull from the soil, so I’m going to have to really watch the compost and organic additives or I’ll be blowing the whole thing. (After next summer I think I’ll need to plant some soil enriching crops to simply mulch under for a while.)
SO, hopefully next year I’ll have two or three varieties of onion, 6 of garlic (Wait, I planted 3 other kinds this year that are going to have to over winter because of the time of year I planted them. So I guess that makes 9 kinds. But 6 I’m really putting focus into.)
I hope to still have a nifty variety of plants in the patch next year, and have a lovely crop of onions and garlic if all goes well. But eventually, I’ll have perfected exactly what I want to grow where out there and will have a perfect little pumpkin patch garden.
