…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.
Heather says
Hey Guys! Love the pumpkins from last year… I guess Sherry will have to do a Clara sized painting job if you use John’s pumpkin.
Hey, and unrelated questions: I was just looking at the exterior shot of your house again and noticed the black “grate” for lack of a better word hanging on your chimney. What do you guys use to drill into brick? I’m at a lose! I have three window boxed that I really want to hang. I’ve had them for 2 years and I can’t figure it out!!
Thanks in advance!!
Heather
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Heather,
We just used our regular drill with a masonry drill bit and were sure to drill into the mortar and not the bricks themselves (which can crack and break apart). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Sarah S. says
My grandmother accidentally grew a canteloupe in our garbage disposal once. It was about 25 years ago. My family took a road trip to Yellowstone and grandma was housesitting for us. She finished off a cantelope that was in the fridge, dumped the rest down the disposal and ran it, then covered it up with the drain cover. We came home a week later and when my mom took the cover off a big plant sprouted out! It was hilarious!!
Lana says
My friend had a similar story. She thought she had disposed of her pumpkins, but somehow some seeds managed to stray, and the next fall she had three beautiful orange (and big!) pumpkins for Halloween that had grown on the side of her driveway!
flynn says
Fun! If you lightly score the outside in a design (patterns, words, spooky faces, etc) it’ll scar over as the pumpkin grows. It’s a really easy way to decorate it, and since you just do it with a pin when it’s very small, it’s quick. Since you don’t actually cut it open, you can display it for longer and/or just eat it later :)
joan says
the book Too Many Pumpkins is a lovely classic story that you should buy or at least get from the library when your daughter is older.
Martha says
We intentionally grew a pumpkin this year. One thing you might consider in the future (in addition to watering) is helping the bees to pollinate.
Some of the blossoms are male and some female (the husband does this part, so I don’t have any tips for telling the difference). Use a cottons swab to move some pollen from one blossom to another. This will help your pumpkins get started earlier and hopefully grow bigger.
Nice job on the accidental farming. LOVE it!
Lydia says
I just realized that those flowers are the ones we fry and eat with eggs or stuff them (if you are aware of Greek ‘dolma’ – same stuffing different ‘cover’). They’re quite delicious if I might say so! :)
(posting all the way from Cyprus)
Mary Sterck says
I know that they like alot of sun and not too much rain, my dad used to have a big garden and would grow Big Tom pumpkins and gourds and Indian Corn that I would sell in the front yard to get money for Christmas. We lived in Conn. and one year one of the Pumpkins were so big that he put it on top of the Chimney and ran a light bulb down so we could have a giant jack-o-lantern on our house. Seriously, they are pretty easy to grow they just need a lot of room. He also made in the field in back of our house a maze in the high grass and little white pumpkins growing throughout for my daughters. Such fun. Have fun growning yours.
mribaro says
Oh, this little pumpkin is too cute! It relates somehow to you two having a small baby – Clara. In Sherry’s place I would definitely decorate the pumpkin so it reffers somehow to your kid. Maybe carve it or paint the face with extra big baby eyes and a smile with one tooth or something more original, as I know you two are both very creative.
Orla says
I grew pumpkins this year. I had intended to grow them and prepared the ground and planted seeds. I carefully tended them and whispered to them every day.
Then I came home from work and relised that my dog had tried to tunnel to Australia – through my raised bed!
I noticed the pumpkin seeds sattered around and while I didn’t “replant” them with as much care I originally did, I just covered them with soil and left them.
Lo and behold, I have also had the huge mad leaves and vine growing with the lovely yellow blossoms – I though they were zucchini’s!
I have just pureed my first pumpkin for pies and am waiting for the other 2 to grow a little more.
I have no secret advice though. I just leave mine and used an organic bug spray to keep the catterpillars off them .
Good luck!
Kate says
This post is so funny! My parents did the SAME thing a few years ago, only they discovered 41 pumpkins!! in their compost heap! They didn’t even realize what was going on until the little suckers were there. My dad was so excited about his new pumpkin patch but the next year: zero. Oh well, we certainly had plenty of seeds/pumpkin butter/jack-o-lanterns that year!
heather j. says
Oh, what a cute little guy…perfect for Clara :)
I had my first attempt at gardening this summer. (I’m here in Richmond.)
Everything did really well in this heat except for my zucchini. And other friends said that they had the same problem. As soon as the little buggers got growing, they rotted, leaving little mushy black 4″ zucchinis behind. Maybe it was just too hot for all things squash-related?
Here’s hoping that next summer is a little more pumpkin/zucchini friendly…
Christa M says
Good for you John!!! And good for you Sherry for allowing him to continue growing the surprise pumpkins, he seems so proud!!! That’s what love is all about right?!?!
So, I had a dream last night that I came and visited you guys and Sherry was building a dollhouse for Clara. Having started a dollhouse years ago that I never finished I was offering up the dollhouse furniture I had accumulated during that hobby period.
Have you guys thought about starting a dollhouse for Clara? They really are a lot of fun and definitely something I would be willing to read about!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Christa M,
What a funny dream! We definitely plan to build Clara a dollhouse someday (I get all gushy when I see handmade ones in thrift stores from time to time- we have to create our own!). I also want to build her (and her possible future sibling(s) a shed-sized playhouse outside someday. Can’t wait to keep everyone posted on those projects!
xo,
s
Lindsey@ClassicIvory says
So last fall I found ::something:: growing throughout one of our flower beds. Earlier that summer we had added some compost that was apparently not broken down all the way…and three months later…we were growing what I like to think of as a honeydew-cucumber-pumpkin. I was all ready to break it open and take a bite…but I was pregnant and my husband was convinced that eating our mystery fruit-vegetable was a bad idea. In hindsight, I should have saved a few seeds and planted them this year!
Deana says
My accidental plant was a squash. I had a garbage can with air slits in the sides for composting. One day, I discovered squash vines growing out of every slot! It was quite comical looking!
Rachel Ray says
Hey guys! That’s what we found after some long overdue weeding around the backyard…we had been growing a WATERMELON! It was about the size of a cantelope and was growing around our ac unit! I though it was just a huge weed-type vine only to find out it was a watermelon vine! Farmers by mistake!!
pam in nc says
After halloween, take out the seeds and let them dry. When you plant them, be sure to give them a trellis to grow up onto. The vines will grow thick but shorter and your pumpkins will grow very pretty because they won’t be lying on the ground. The trellis will help contain the vines, too. They need lots and lots of water if you want larger pumpkins. Australians eat a lot of pumpkins – way more than we do here in the US. I have a lot of great recipes for using pumpkins!
YoungHouseLove says
Mmm, I love pumpkin seeds. Especially salty overdone one. Seriously, I’m obsessed.
xo
s
Liz W. says
I noticed the popsicle stick poking out of your pumpkin plant reads “Charleston Bell.” Is this a kind of pumpkin? (I live in Charleston, SC, so it just caught my eye…)
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Liz,
It’s actually a type of pepper that we planted in our edible garden this year. Delish!
xo,
s
Aimee says
My mother had tomato plants growing in her flower beds this year because of the seeds in the compost my dad threw down. It absolutely tickled her pink!
Jyl says
What a fun little story!
Sherry, let the man have his pumpkins. He could be getting into a lot worse trouble ;)
John, congratulations on your little pumpkin! I’d be pretty darn proud too!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha. It’s true, there’s definitely worse trouble John could be getting into.
xo,
s
Snickrsnack Katie says
Thanks for clearing that up, John! I just wanted to know because I, too, have a compost heap and wouldn’t want the same thing to happen. It is pretty amazing when you think about how an accident could turn into something good, though! Serendipity at its finest! :)
Kalina says
John, I think you could freeze the little guy to keep him forever, you seem pretty attached.. lol! This was a funny read, and good info to know not to throw anything with seeds in my compost!
Jill L-G says
Your little pumpkin is MUCH cuter than the butternut squashes that our compost has surprised us with! The plant actually grew in our garden, after we spread last year’s compost. We let said garden grow wild for a while, and my husband wanted to “weed” the mysterious plant (that looked MUCH like yours) but I figured that we’d be getting some kind of vegetable (cucumbers?) from the pretty yellow flowers that sprouted.
I pulled the first squash to make it to its pretty orange color yesterday, and it was covered with warts and even nibbled on by animals in a few places. I cut those off, and we’ll be having it for dinner tomorrow – YUM (hopefully)!
Kate at Dream To Life says
This is hilarious! Thank you for brightening my morning :>) (a morning sadly lacking because of the empty bottle of french vanilla coffee mate in the fridge)
cheers!
kate
Jennifer says
Hilarious. I accidentally had heirloom tomato plants pop up recently! Sounds lovely, since last year my tomato fortune didn’t go so well. They were such an eye-sore last year (Oklahoma tomato plants were bad last summer due to the tremendous rain, then drought).
I didn’t want to waste the dirt so I had dumped the pots of soil and plant carcasses in my beds early this summer. Great fall tomatoes.
Just goes to show you, nature does it’s thing pretty well.
stacia says
A lot of gardeners and green thumb types like to call plants that self-seed without any help from you “volunteers”. Pumpkins and other squash varieties are famous for being prolific volunteers. My In-laws house is a sea of purple and pink Columbine in the late spring due to years of seeds spreading themselves all over the property. I’m always amazed when a 2 1/2 foot tall plant is growing out of the crack between the driveway and the sidewalk. Accidental gardening is awesome. Gives you a chance to tryout your green thumb with very little financial or emotional investment.
bindc says
That is a cute little pumpkin!
Kim says
The exact same thing happened to us this year. We threw our pumpkin in our garden to compost and we ended up with a huge vine. It wrapped around the garden twice and we too have one pumpkin. Fortunately we were able to keep ours alive and our pumpkin is now big and orange and ready for picking! How funny!! PS i have read if you plant bright flowers, blue, violet and indigo than you will get more bees and therefore more pumpkins!!! Enjoy your pumpkin!
Dusa says
It’s a Clara pumpkin!
Sara says
I love it! A few years ago I also through our pumpkins out behind our wood pile and low and behold…we had a whole ton of sprouts come up! Even though some made nice vines we never got any pumpkins. Maybe I’ll try this year!!!
Jaime says
I LOVE accidental pumpkins!! There is a stretch of 101 in my town (north of San Diego, CA) where a few years ago, some kids must have smashed some poor jack-o-lanterns. Now every year since, we are treated to some “wild” pumpkins in their bright orange glory just growing there on the side of the road!! I saw the beginnings of them just the other day! :)
OwningSingle says
That’s so cool! Congrats lol.
Carissa says
OMG! This EXACT same thing happened to us!!! The same story, from tossing the used Halloween pumpkins in the compost, to using said compost, to the vine taking over our landsaping. I totally blame our copycatting your DIY compost bin.
I think it’s the neatest, prettiest plant. I love the bright yellow-orange flowers.
Our vine is still alive and kicking and sprouting at least 30 mini pumpkins. They’re adorable! I can’t wait to put them all over the house!
Hilarious!!
Erika says
This is great! I had 2 mystery vining plants come up from my garden (where I put what I thought was composted material from the bin last fall as soil amendment) this summer. I knew they were some sort of squash plant and I kept picking them when the flowers fell off, like I knew how to do for summer squash/zucchini. However, I finally put 2 and 2 together and figured out it was delicata winter squash that I had tossed the seeds out over a year ago. I had been picking the squash too early the whole summer – it still tasted ok, but I’m looking forward to trying one that I actually let mature :)
Holly says
A family that is friends with our family was sitting on their front porch one summer eating watermelon and spitting the seeds out in their flower bed. Well, after some time watermelons started sprouting everywhere. They had so many that that year for Halloween instead of carving pumpkins they carved watermelons (3 or 4). LOL
Lark says
I,too, am an accidental pumpkin farmer. Who would have thought that some crazy looking plant that popped up in the backyard was pumpkins? This past June, as I was admiring our new planter, I noticed some vine like plant growing. Soon came the flowers and then came the beginnings of the pumpkins. We’re thinking we might even get off cheap this year and have our 3 kids pick their own out back…and we’re talking about a Southern California suburb kind of out back.
Jen @ The Decor Scene says
Very cool. Something similar happened in our yard. Last year we had a pumpkin for the season that we bought in a store. One day a squirel started to eat it and it was everywhere. We have funny pictures of it somewhere. But that little squirel decided to plant some seeds for us and then the following year a pumpkin came up. Pretty cool.
PatC says
John! Have Sherry paint it white and add it to her ceramic collection. It’s cute and little.
Hmmmm…but perhaps a bit too smooth for her, eh?
lol
Ashley M says
It’s white — perfect for your house!
Hope we get to see a cool Halloween spread from y’all again this year!
Love you guys!
Gail says
John and Sherry: I really like almost everything you do, but I gotta say that one white pumpkin feeds my centipede phobia and makes me move down the page until it’s gone. Its just creepy!
caitlin says
haha!
this is probably one of my favorite posts! It’s not exactly DIY, but sorta! and too funny. :)
Sarah M. says
Oh my gosh, the same thing happened to me! Check this out:
http://apuppetopera.blogspot.com/2010/08/garden-surprises.html
A whole crazy garden full of accidental vegetables popped up from undigested seeds in the compost! I have TWO GIANT TOMATO plants on the go as well as some mystery squash!… it’s a shame it’s so late in the season, but I just might get some green tomato chutney out of it! Good luck with your pumpkin!
Vanessa says
This happen to us last year. We threw our pumpkin in teh woods behind our house and the vine slowly creeped into our yard with the beautiful yellow flowers. My husband took it on as a science experiment. We wound up with 11 pumpkins -pretty big ones too! Nature is crazy!
Ashley says
My family had a giant pumpkin patch when I was growing up. My parents were given a piece of land out in the country. So with no intentions of building a house on it, we planted a pumpkin patch on it. I remember counting 1100 pumpkins one year (nearly the population of the town we lived in). We lined our sidewalks with them and sold them using the honor system….a little pumpkin bucket sat out to put your money in. We made far more memories off our pumpkin patch than dollars.
Mother nature did a good job of raising them for us. We simply had to keep the deer and woodchucks from eating them. That’s my advice: Just give them lots of sunshine and a little rainwater. They’ll sprout.
Jen says
This happened when I was younger in my parent’s compost bin (they have been green for way longer than it was cool and honestly without even trying). They had a compost bin (large size, wood sides) at the edge of our property before the woods/treeline started. we always had to take out food scraps out to it as a chore and a few years in a row we had pumpkins growing from it! It’s so cool!
Kristen says
Definitely squash vine borers. We have tried every organic method of pest control with no avail. Last year, we tried pheromone traps for them – caught 24, but squash/pumpkins didn’t make it.
So, if you want pumpkins or squash, you will likely have to spray with the real deal. Other ideas are here:
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/pests/insects-diseases-weeds/stop-squash-vine-borers-in-your-garden/
Celia says
We get accidental pumpkins in our compost every year! They’re usually left over from halloween pumpkins, and every year we forget about them until they get big in August. (We don’t turn our compost or anything – it’s just a place to throw food so it doesn’t go in the trash)
freefalling says
funny.
MrsPaetz says
That’s absolutely hilarious! I would imagine it takes quite a lot of space to have a not-accidental pumpkin patch ;)