My pumpkin patch

Every year I buy seeds to plant with Lily-flowers, fruit, vegetables--and I never plant them, or if I do, they die immediately.    This year, I bought two packets of pumpkin seeds, and then I forgot about them.  


On July 14th, I was cleaning up, and I found the pumpkin seeds.  I sent Timmy and Lily out to plant the seeds.   They planted 5 seeds in 3 small little patches around an old tree stump we have in our back yard, which gets lots of sun.    It was going to rain the next day, so we just kind of threw a little water, then forgot about them (which is why everything I plant dies).


The next week, I was looking out the window, and I noticed three little sprigs of green--pumpkin plants!!   Every day, we empty the de-humidifer in the basement, and use the water to water the pumpkin patch (which we now call it).     When we got back from Notre Dame, I was worried what being away for 5 days would do to my pumpkin patch, but this is what we saw--it was at least 2 times bigger than when we left!!!   This is what it looked like on August 25th:

                             

My kids have been making fun of me--I have been watching youtube videos about the development of pumpkins, and getting tips on how to get pumpkins to grow.    Apparently, we really need bees to pollinate the female flowers with the male flowers.    I haven't seen too many bees, so I have been worried.  In addition,  I started hearing about things that hurt pumpkins, including something called Powdery Mildew (PM).

This is what it looks like on 8/30---can you see the yellowing leaves?

So, today, when I went out to water my plants, and to see when I might finally see a little pumpkin growing, I was horrified to see that my leaves have PM on them--not all of them, but a good amount.  It is really bad, and can devastate a crop (which is what I now call it), so I read up on what/how/why PM is.

As I was doing what I was told to do, I noticed my first tiny pumpkin--it is about the size of a really small plum, but I am thrilled!!!