Pumpkin season is here. From my office window, I can see some of the farmhands cutting pumpkins off the vine. They’re also loading up trailers and hauling them up to the east side of the ranch. That makes it easier and closer for visitors to walk out and then select their own.
We grow a lot of pumpkins, big and small. In addition to the typical orange ones, we also grow a lot of odd, decorative gourds of all different shapes, colors and sizes. There’s a curved green one called, I think, a bird gourd, that dries well. Artists use that variety for carving in a style not unlike scrimshaw.
One of my favorites is the Cinderella pumpkin. It’s flattish, ribbed, and a sort of orange-red color. I suppose it’s the precise variety that Cinderella’s godmother used to create a coach.
If you have some extra time one Saturday, here’s something you can do with your kids or your cat (if your cat is the type to sit beside you and stare unblinkingly and disdainfully at whatever it is you’re doing). Take a smallish pumpkin, lop off the top, clean out the inside, and then use it as a vase for flowers. If you aren’t growing any flowers, try your neighbor’s garden. The contraption will last for a few days before it subsides into a messy decline. In the meantime, however, you’ll be very stylish and a threat to Martha Stewart.
For some reason, last year around here the pumpkin trend was for white ones. I call them ghost pumpkins (I think the official variety name is something like Full Moon). We saved some seeds, and grew some ourselves; they seem to be the alpha pumpkin of the garden – didn’t get much in the way of orange ones this year, but the white ones are prolific. I hope they taste okay.