…because Petersik Pumpkin Farmer is the new guy in town. Well, Accidental Pumpkin Farmer I should say. Yep folks, I grew a pumpkin without even trying. Personally, I’m kinda amused by the whole thing. Sherry’s a bit less enthusiastic about our surprise fruit. Here’s how it happened:
See those pumpkins we painted last year? When they were past their prime I – without really thinking – tossed ’em in one of our DIY compost bins. Apparently, if you’re trying to grow pumpkins, nutrient rich compost is a great place to “plant” a fruit filled with seeds. But if you’re trying to maintain a compost bin, I wouldn’t recommend it.
I didn’t realize I was on the path to pumpkin growing until this past spring when I used some of said compost to help out our edible garden… and some mystery sprouts popped up next to each of my plantings. After plucking the “weeds” a few times we successfully eradicated what we didn’t realize at the time were pumpkins trying to grown next to our basil and bell peppers.
Then one day I noticed a bigger version of that “weed” poking out of the compost bin. That’s when I put two and two together and realized what I had done. Sherry was a tad annoyed that our compost had been compromised, but I was honestly too excited by the idea that I had started growing a pumpkin to even care. So she agreed to let me follow my crazy accidental pumpkin dreams and see what would happen (especially because we had a second compost bin that we were still able to use without pumpkin interference).
What we got was a crazy vine. I sadly don’t have any pictures of it because I honestly never thought it would work, but you can see a smidge of its wide leaves poking out behind me in my glass bottle video. Those, my friends, are pumpkin leaves.
I actually thought it was a cool plant. It wrapped itself around our fence, grew big leaves and even sported a few blossoms that would open during the day (like the one pictured below from someone else’s garden). All of this made me very excited to see what magnificent pumpkin(s) would be growing come fall.
But then it died. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t give it any special care all summer, but upon returning from our Ithaca trip all we had was a shriveled brown ghost of what it had once been. Sadness.
The story still has a happy ending. As I pulled the dead vine from the fence the other day I discovered this:
I know I won’t be winning awards at the state fair or anything, but I have to say I’m still quite proud that my accident trip into pumpkin farming produced at least one (teeny tiny) cool white pumpkin. And it’s not even oddly shaped or covered with warts, it’s a pretty cute little guy if I do say so myself. Perhaps I’ll plant this one somewhere intentionally so its legacy can still live on! After Sherry has some decorating fun with it of course…
Do any of you intentionally grow pumpkins or have any tips for me if I decide to give it another go? I’m inclined to think it’s pretty easy to do if I made it this far without trying.
Ashley M. [at] (never home)maker says
Same thing happened to us last year. But we actually ended up growing several full-sized pumpkins. I even made pumpkin puree with one of them! (If you’re interested: http://www.neverhomemaker.com/2009/11/pumpkin-puree-how-to.html). Anyway, it’s cool to have an accidental garden or sorts. Keeps life interesting — that’s for sure!
Anna says
We ended up growing an accidental vine in our wheelbarrow last year, and like yours, it died off over a vacation.
This year, we used four medium-ish pots on our back patio to grow our vines. It was nice not to weed and we moved the vines to the perimeter of the patio. They were doing awesome about 3 weeks ago, and again wilted.
I’ll keep reading comments for tips!
Sara says
When we were kids, my sister and I (accidentally) grew watermelons at the end of the driveway in our yard one year! We were messy eaters so dad would sit us out on the drive way to eat our juicy watermelon slices, then hose it down when we were done (teehee)!
Tessa says
I’m so jealous of your adorable white pumpkin. We also had several vines pop up this spring (squirrels must have spread last year’s pumpkin remnants all over, no compost required) and finally decided to let a couple grow. I now have a huge beautiful vine (Love the flowers! I just found some recipes for the flowers!), but not even a tiny pumpkin. :(
calliope (Greece) says
Hi!
Do you know that these pumpkin flowers are actually edible and really yummy??
They are a summer delicacy here in Greece and we make them stuffed with rice like this:
http://www.gefsi.gr/modules.php?name=News&file=article394
or fried like this:
http://www.radicio.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=2371
or in an omelete with other vegetables and cheese
Kera says
We have little bugs here called squash borers– they’ll kill any kind of squash plant (cukes, pumpkins, crook necks). The plant looks beautiful one day and the next it is dead. :( I haven’t figured out an organic way to get rid of them (successfully).
Lauren says
Way to go John!
Lacey says
Like Kera said, it is very likely that you had a squash vine borer. They are so frustrating to battle organically. They frustrated me so much that I didn’t plant any squash this year. Hopefully they moved on to my neighbors garden. I have heard that if you plant your squash plants later, after the squash vine bore moth would typically lay their eggs, you can avoid them. I Iowa I have heard wait until July, late I know but I am gonnag try it. I have also heard trying to keep it covered until blossoms form but you try and keep a vine covered…not easy. As for the whilty part, if you don’t have the bug, fall is the time of year for the vine to die as it is the end of the growing season for pumpkins… That’s all I know. :)
Single Stone Studios says
Too funny! Every year my green-thumbed-father-in-law grows pumpkins in his garden and gives each of the grandkids a pumpkin to carve for halloween. It’s always fun to carve grandpa’s pumpkins!
katy says
We accidentally grew an entire pumpkin patch one year……a whole slew of large, orange pumpkins in one corner of our backyard. It was crazy. And it wasnt even fall, so we had no idea what to do with them!
Amanda says
Pumpkins and gourds are super easy to grow just about anywhere. We planted 3 mounds (3 plants/ mound) of pumpkins and 2 mounds of gourds this year. They went crazy! Like vines 8-10 feet in each direction crazy. We live in NY so it’s a bit cooler here. Our pumpkin leaves dies off a few weeks ago, but the pumpkins hung out a bit longer to turn orange. We now have 20+ pumpkins (we will can them in chunks for pie) and probably 50+ gourds. They went crazy but family and friends can’t wait to decorate with them!
Brandy says
A similar thing happened to us a few years ago. Once Halloween came and went, my husband decided to toss the kids jack-o-lanterns into our compost “bin” (don’t ask). The “bin” (ok, it was a hole he dug in a small corner of the backyard and was his first attempt at composting) was in one corner of the backyard but he discovered months later the same vines as you describe on the total opposite side of the yard. He thinks that maybe birds got ahold of the seeds and somehow depostied them on the other side of the yard. Needless to say, the following fall we had three perfectly sized pumpkins for each of our kiddos!! Saved us a trip to the pumpkin patch too. What’s so funny is that he has tried in vain these past couple of years to grow pumpkins and has had no luck!!
I love your blog and I am in absolute love with your sweet, precious baby!!
Ellen says
I did the exact same thing! I replanted some of the sprouts into a more convenient area for a pumpkin patch, but I don’t think they liked that much. They’re still alive but kind of stunted, had a few flowers here and there but no pumpkins yet. And I definitely have 2 varieties, I think one might be a butternut squash! Oh how I wish it would give me at least 1 yummy squash!
Monica says
I’m guessing other comments have this same information, but there is a huge pumpkin blight going on right now. It’s not just pumpkins, it’s affected several winter squash varieties as well as cantaloupe… If that’s what it was, the leaves would have turned white with a powdery film.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks for the info! No powdery film, they just turned brown. Probably from lack of water as it’s been super dry lately! Poor John. He was so excited about his giant pumpkin growing potential. Maybe next year…
xo,
s
Britney says
Last summer my dad and I planted pumpkins, gourds and sunflowers to be used as decoration for my wedding in September. They were very easy to grow, the gourds just loved all of our hot, Texas sunshine! In the end we had about 10-20 per each of the 4 varieties we grew: fairytale pumpkin, yellow acorn squash, long island cheese and naples long.
Here are some shots of our garden bounty at the wedding: http://britneyanne.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/our-wedding-the-details/
Maybe you can purposefully grow some pumpkins next year for your own DIY fall decor!
Jenna says
This is great! Love it!
We grew tomatoes on accident once. We had a tomato sitting on our counter that didn’t get used, and amazingly the thing sprouted – right on the counter! My hubby threw it in a pot outside and it grew great a plant with tons of tomatoes! Since we couldn’t eat all the tomatoes the plant produced, my hubby threw some of the unused ones back into the pot, and the next season we had even more tomatoes! It’s going on about 3 years of this cycle now – it’s the tomato that keeps on giving. Hopefully you’ll have as much success with your pumpkins!
Robyn in Chicago says
This post just made me laugh.
I kind of think you should win an award at the state fair.
That little, white pupkin is adorable.
Liz says
Annual Marigolds can be used anywhere to deter Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, thrips, tomato hornworms, and whiteflies. They are also known to repel harmful root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) that attack tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries. The root of the Marigold produces a chemical that kills nematodes as they enter the soil. If a whole area is infested, at the end of the season, turn the Marigolds under so the roots will decay in the soil. You can safely plant there again the following spring
Tanya says
What a lovely little pumpkin!
Jimmy says
Given the time of year and the speed with which the plant died, the culprit is probably squash vine borer (especially if the plant started dying from the root end). They can sometimes be controlled by loosely wrapping the first few feet of vine with tin foil as the plant grows. Also, you can check the vine every few days — if there are holes, you can try picking out the larvae with a needle or stick.
candace @ thecandace.com says
Awesome – I think that little guy is cute! Can’t wait to see how you weave it into some fall decor! Good job, John!
Sugar Cookie says
“…crazy accidental pumpkin dreams…” Too funny!
Shelley @ Green Eggs & Hamlet says
Definitely try it for real for next year! Grow, pumpkins, grow!
Elizabeth says
I grew countless pumpkins and gourds this summer by accident. It was hilarious to watch all this mystery plants pop up in my garden and see what grew from them!
lindsay says
I live about an hour north of you and we accidently grew gourds this year. Last fall we had some gourds and when they rotted we threw them in the back yard. Then this year they popped up all of a sudden. We got several mini pumpkins and gourds off the plant before the stink bugs killed it. They are nasty little suckers that mate like crazy and lay there eggs on the underside of leaves of squash/zucchini plants and others like them (we found them on our cantelope and tomato too). Once the eggs hatch they attach the stems/stalks of the plants and suck them dry. I would scrape the eggs off and kill bugs everyday but the prevailed and my zucinni and gourd plants died. Since they are gone I haven’t seen the stink bugs anymore. I used several different natural sprays and they didn’t work.
Kristen says
I was also going to suggest you try eating the flowers (like Calliope from Greece). They are delicious! My fiance comes from an Italian family and it’s something they do once a year when the pumpkin flowers bloom. He uses a piping bag to stuff them with ricotta cheese. Then you make a light tempura batter and fry them. He then bakes them in the oven for a few minutes with tomato sauce on them. So amazing!
Amy Button says
I decided to grow a pumpkin when my middle kiddo brought one home from school. I got lots of info. at http://www.pumpkinnook.com
I’d love to say that I was successful and over the last two years I did get two tiny pumpkins. But powdery mold is nearly impossible to avoid and may be what killed your vine. It grows underneath the leaves and I think it usually hits around August when it’s really hot and humid.
Best of luck though, I really hope you succeed at it. I’ll be buying mine this year :D
Amanda says
We did the same thing one year with a halloween pumpkin and ended up with a ginormous plant in our compost the next year. It lured an army of squash bugs into our garden and the pumpkin and my cucumbers were dead nearly overnight. seriously. brown and wilted and dead. I’ve been afraid of cucurbits ever since. those bugs are gross and are terribly hard to get rid of. really only manual removal or pesticides work. neither of which i’m that fond of.
Katy says
we never got any volunteer pumpkins, but we get so many tomato plants from our compost bin i decided not even to buy any seedlings this year!
Emily @ The Happy Home says
oh, of course it figures the first time i share a link it doesn’t work! http://tinyurl.com/2cq8dfz
Jessica says
I accidentally grew some pumpkins too once when I was a young girl. My Pop gave me the seeds from the pumpkin he was cutting up and I went outside (not to their knowledge) and put them in their rose garden. A few months later, I had pumpkins sprouting all over the rose garden and my grandparents couldn’t figure out why! We had some nice pumpkins to eat from that.
Gayle says
As as avid composter for many years, the general rule of thumb is that composting pumpkins with the seeds inside is a no-no unless you are interested in growing a pumpkin patch the next year. You can prevent pumpkins by having a hot pile, turning regularly to ensure the seeds are destroyed, and germinated seeds get displaced/killed of they root and sprout. You have to watch the pile regularly to get rid of pumpkin sprouts as they occur.
erin says
HA HA! I love “accidental” plants. We get ALL KINDS of crazy stuff growing in the garden, and its fun to see what pops up. Potatoes and tomatoes are pretty regular little buddies. We always try to do tomatoes in our garden in the summer, but we’ve never planted potatoes. We like playing “guess that mystery shoot, cause it sure ain’t crab grass!”, its fun for the whole fam! lol Good luck with your tiny punkin, its so cute!
Allison says
My parent’s neighbor planted some pumpkin seeds for her young son, and I remember thinking at the time that there was no way they were going to grow a pumpkin. Fall came around though and my mom mentioned that they had actual pumpkins and I thought it’d be those small, short pumpkins you’d use as a table accent or something. I went home though and sure enough they had 4 or 5 pumpkins the size of basketballs! I couldn’t believe it. When I devote more space to gardening I’d love to give it a try.
beabee says
Yep, my family did that too.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2103810&id=7917676&l=1a30af26ed
elissa @ faucethead says
ha ha! what an awesome surprise. i was planning on throwing my pumpkins in the compost after halloween, but now i’ll have to keep a look out for sprouts come spring!
ps if you’re in the mood for more plants we’re having a terrarium giveaway. we’d love to have you stop by! http://www.faucethead.com/blog/?p=1208
Kate F. says
My dad lives in Richmond, and he grew an accidental pumpkin vine in his compost pile, too… then he very NON-accidentally hand pollinated one of the blooms with another. That bloom is the only one that turned into a pumpkin, so I think you’re pretty lucky to have gotten one! My dad’s pumpkin was just turning from green to orange a couple of weekends ago when I visited. This post reminds me to ask him for an update the next time I call.
Karla @ {The Classy Woman} says
I love this story! 2 years ago our orange pumpkin was past its prime so I threw it into our compost pile too, I was very impressed with how quickly it degraded until there were just seeds. The next spring (it’s FL, we don’t get frost) I started seeing shoots growing up from the pile, then leaves with yellow flowers just like those. We’re not sure if it was a cantaloupe, pumpkin or cucumber though. It got far too hot for the plant to survive but now I’m curious what it would have ended up being. My hubby eats a lot of cantaloupe so it could have been that too. All of those plants looks so similar it’s hard to tell.
That is so cool, enjoy your baby white pumpkin! BTW-you guys constantly amaze me. I love how your centipede pumpkin was actually a J and S for your initials. What will you two come up with next!?
Amanda says
There are all kinds of treatments that fight squash disease and pests, both organic options and heavy duty pesticides. I’ve found that both work pretty well, so organic is the way to go. Ask your local Master Gardner at an independent nursery.
We grew tons of pumpkins when I was a kid. By the time I was a teenager, it wasn’t as cool. One year there were a few pumpkins left in our barn that got mushy after a winter of forgetting they were there. I was given the wretched job of hauling their slimy carcasses to the compost pile. After a few trips, I came up with the idea of simply burying their remains in the dirt floor of the barn. So I did. Three YEARS later, after a wind storm took some of the roof off the barn, my mom called me at college to ask if I could possibly have any idea how we could have pumpkins growing in the barn floor! I laughed to tears, and so did she. Gotta love pumpkins!
Carolyn says
That’s what I would call a happy accident. Good job! Your upcoming Winter would be the perfect time for some Roast Pumpkin Soup. Yum!
Krystle says
Very cool!
Sara says
We are growing accidental pumpkins right now too! The very same thing happened to us in our compost pile. We now have 4 pumpkins growing!
Rhubarb and Venison says
We’re also growing accidental pumpkins…and tomatoes…and sunflowers…and zucchini…you can imagine our garden isn’t in any pattern or straight line, but we luv it. It’s amazing what can happen when you let nature take its course.
MichelleG says
we love an impromptu pumpkin patch! our first experience was the same (last years compost on this years garden = pumpkins everywhere!) my husband was just like you John, so thrilled with his victory pumpkin in the fall.
then this summer we noticed a different kind of vine winding out of our compost pile – a cantaloupe! gotta watch those gourd/melon type seeds i guess, but we think its a hoot!
Andrea says
About 20 years ago, my family took up this hobby of growing giant pumpkins. My brother, who was like 7 at the time, grew this 600-pound monster that won lots of shows in the Midwest. Then he could sell the seeds ( think $20 EACH!!) for other breeders. Yeah, there are fanatics who breed pumpkins to be this huge!! Now there are people in our area who grow them over 1000 pounds and set all kinds of world records and take their giant pumpkins on Letterman and Leno. It’s seriously crazy. But a really fun hobby or obsession, depending on how you look at it.
Others are right – pumpkins take INSANE amounts of water, and beetles were a major problem this year. You had a small (and cute!) success, so try again next year. There’s nothing cooler than letting your little one watch their Halloween pumpkin grow!
Jamie says
All I know from my dad’s former days as a “giant” pumpkin grower (he used to enter competitions for fun) is that you should pluck most of the flowers so all the nutrients go to just a few pumpkins, and water them with beer. Yep. Take that for what it is. ;)
Carla says
awww…its like Mother Nature made one itty bitty pumpkin for Clara :)
valerie J. says
Like some of the other commenters said you probably had squash vine borers. We had them this year in addition to squash bugs (they look almost identical to stink bugs). They wiped out all 28 of my pumpkin vines in a matter of weeks despite my efforts to kill them. Sadness. The organic methods to control them are very labor intensive.
Kristi W. says
I didn’t read through the rest of the comments, but I’m guessing maybe it was too warm for the pumpkin? The pumpkins in our area really love when the temps get cooler. They go crazy.
Lori says
This year, I also accidentally planted something in my backyard! Except, it was much lazier, and a different type of plant. Last winter, I had a squash that had seen better days, and although I’ve yet to cross “composting” off my list, I threw it out into the (very deep and covering) snow, because it was just too big and heavy to throw into the trash (and then landfill). I threw it by the air conditioner, so it wouldn’t disturb anything (or tempt my dog) and forgot about it.I figured it would decompose by springtime, when the snow melted, and it did.
A while ago, my fiance noticed some large leaves when he was mowing around that area … Then, he noticed squash … And now I have a lovely acorn squash sitting on my counter! Hopefully your next accidental planting will work as well.