Meet Pepo

As promised, I bring here a photograph of the sole surviving product of our pumpkin plant profusion. The other two fell prey to squirrels.

Now it turns out that this splendid, if small, specimen is an eccentric acorn squash, officially known as Cucurbita pepo. But, of course, as the experts know (but I was a bit shocked when Brigitte first tutored me) the “squash” name should not confuse us. The pumpkin is itself a squash. Hence my long persistence in clinging to the “pumpkin” designation, even after I noticed that the leaves were ever so slightly different than last year, was perfectly all right. This variety has Mexican origins.

Pepo is eccentric because it is technically known as a winter squash, but it decided to appear in summer. I am happy to follow up one sequence of development this past summer, the magical metamorphosis of a caterpillar into the splendid Black Swallowtail butterfly, with the presentation here of the last chapter of another process, a pumpkin that morphed into a squash.

Viva Pepo!

Pumpkin Final

Now that the last day of September has arrived--and having received encouragement from Monique to complete this task as well--I thought I'd show the last photo of the 2010 pumpin-in-the-compost-heap.

The pictures were taken on the tenth day of June, July, August, and September.

The plant has produced three dark little fruits. In  due time Brigitte may get around to harvesting the products of this great leafing. When that day comes, I'll try to bring you a kind of P.S. to this series. The plant itself, alas, no longer looks as showy as it should, hence it is time to say Well done and Good-Bye.

Pumpkin's Progress

In this post I am keeping up with our 2010 pumpkin, the one growing out of our compost heap. This is the third appearance of this plant on Ghulf Genes, each picture one month apart. Here you see the plant’s development as recorded on June, July, and August 10th.

The plant began to flower in August, but the photograph does not show the yellow blooms.

Our very casual and eccentric “nature’s perserve,” in part hugging a narrow piece of ground against a fence, in part occupying strange towers built of bricks harvested years ago from a modernized driveway, provide us with continuous enjoyment, and the pumpkin is now a recurring phenomenon.

Now that the summer’s highlight—the visit of members of our French family to the New World—is over, we may yet proceed to do the long-postponed uproar—the replacement of our backyard apron and garage. If that process does not cause the ultimate disruption, namely the dislocation of our compost heap, we may yet be able to show you additional changes in this pumpkin’s progress, not least the fruit it will eventually bear. If the worst happens, perhaps we shall continue this story next year ...

Pumpkin, pumpkin, growing green,
In the compost’s subterrain,
If the builders break your frame,
That would be a crying shame.

Maybe we can find a place
In some shaded safer space
Where we can save your roundish fruits
From jack-the-hammer-wielding brutes.

Pumpkin's Progress

June 10, 2010

July 10, 2010

Compost

Late each spring, as Brigitte girds herself for about the fifth round of serious garden work, I have to fetch her a wheel-barrow-full of fresh black dirt from that shaded, dark strip of land from behind our garage. We have a compost heap although “heap” isn’t the right word. It is a rectangular frame of wood I’d covered with wire mesh when first I made it, oh, a decade or so ago. Here we dump our vegetable wastes and empty the mower’s grass bag. The rack has a great capacity to digest such waste. Its level rises and then slowly sinks again as rot and decay turn lower layers grayish-yellow and then black with rain and time. Once every year or so, this time of year, I dig a big hole in the back to fill the barrow. The new dirt then serves to fill the pots and to enrich our flower-beds. I fill the hole again from the compost heap, lifting oddly shaped pitch-forks full of stuff from its upper layer and burying them again out back. I mark the spot with a brick. The stuff will lay there for three years and, in the process, turn into black dirt again.

Three years ago we had a fun surprise. Some pumpkins seeds we had discarded in the wake of Halloween had managed to sprout deep inside the compost, looked through the wire mesh and then proliferated from that spot out- and downward so that a gigantic pumpkin vine eventually grew right on the concrete and produced two lovely pumpkins once again. This happened again the following year and—this spring—we wondered: would the pumpkin be back? Well it is back—but just beginning. The picture shows its green hopes sticking out, past the wire. Those of you who’re interested in the deepest levels of civilization may rest assured. I shall report on the Pumpkin’s Progress in the future with words and pictures.

Meanwhile, for the third year in a row, I’ve left the bottom layer of the compost heap entirely undisturbed lest I interfere with the life of one splendid specimen of Cucurbita pepo. Long live the pumpkin!