My friend, the giant pumpkin grower, went out of town for a few days and asked me to babysit his giants. One might wonder what babysitting a giant pumpkin entails aside from giving a plant some water? Well, my friend left me a page of instructions including how much to water each how, extra watering depending on temperature, watering the main vine and lots of other little details.
Day 1:
I visited the gardens, watered, uncovered the pumpkins, told them they are both beautiful (I remember reading a study that discussed the benefits of talking to plants and if it helps, I will tell them they are beautiful while they are in my care).
Day 2:
I woke up and headed out to the patch for my first visit of the day. I watered and again told them they were beautiful and to grow big.
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| pumpkin A |
There are two giant pumpkins and one long gourd. I will label all the giant pumpkin pics to help keep them straight.
So far we are off to a good start. Uneventful is exactly how you want things to be when you are babysitting someone giant pumpkins (since they have put so much work into growing them this big, and there are only a few more weeks before the giant pumpkin weigh off).
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| pumpkin B |
Day 3: Storms are coming
Seriously, bad thunder storms while the pumpkins are in my care?!?! UGH!!!! I checked the weather forecast and saw numerous warnings about how ugly the weather could be. I was nervous! My friend emailed me some additional storm instructions for how to keep the pumpkins safe and well protected during a bad storm. I just kept saying nothing can go wrong with these pumpkins while they are in my care.
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| pumpkin B |
I bundled up pumpkin B. The forecast said there was a chance of hail so I put a towel under the tarp to give it some padding to protect him.
The sky went from sunny to thunder and lightning in a matter of minutes, and I raced to get pumpkin A covered and make sure the long gourd was safe.
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| pumpkin A |
There isn't much I can do to protect the long gourd. I was just hoping the storm wouldn't involve strong winds. I took down the ladder so it couldn't get blown over and knock into the long gourd.
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| pumpkin A |
Day 4: We survived.
The storms were short lived but intense. I wanted to photograph the pumpkin patch while the rain fell, but the rain was so heavy it was impossible to see through the rain far enough that I could keep my camera protected in my car; and it was raining too hard to take my camera outside.
When I woke up and saw the sun, I raced over to check the pumpkins. I breathed a big sigh of relief that they were fine! They survived the storms, tarps remained over them and all looked good.
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| pumpkin A |
Remember how white this pumpkin was in some of the earlier pictures? He is starting to turn a light orange.
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| pumpkin A |
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| pumpkin B |
To give you an idea of the size of this giant, that is my beach towel that I put under the tarp. It is a regular sized beach towel (not a child's small towel) that I lay on at the beach. It looks tiny on the top of a giant pumpkin.
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| pumpkin B |
The pumpkins are covered during the day with a sheet. Here is pumpkin A with his sheet fresh from the dryer. Again, nothing was going to happen to him under my watch. I took home his sheet after the storm to dry it. I was not going to take the chance of leaving a damp sheet on him to damage the outside of the pumpkin (if the outside of a pumpkin is damaged, it will be disqualified from competition in the weigh off).
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| pumpkin A |
While I love spending time in the pumpkin patch and watching these giants grow, the storm in the middle of my long weekend of pumpkin babysitting was stressful. After photographing several pumpkin seasons and seeing how much work goes into growing a giant pumpkin (and after my unsuccessful attempt at growing one), I realize how much of themselves the growers invest in growing a giant pumpkin. It is far more than throwing some seeds in the ground and watering the garden. I am so grateful that the storm wasn't worse and that my friend came home to two giant pumpkins (hopefully a bit bigger than when he left) and one long gourd (still growing).
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| pumpkin A |
In my 4 days of babysitting, the long gourd grew about 4 inches.
If you are in CT and want to see giant pumpkins, squash and long gourds in person, be sure to check out the official event page, Ridgefield's Pumpkin Weigh Off
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| pumpkin B |
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