My pumpkins are going insane! My garden, which I like to say is 100% organic and about 95% weeds, is going okay. I have carrots and beans and squash which seem to be doing fairly well, as well as a Mr. Stripey tomato plant, two bell pepper plants, and ten stalks of corn. However a cucumber beetle invasion has attacked my pumpkins, killed my watermelons and seems to still be nibbling on the tender sprouts of my cucumber plants.Despite this cucumber beetle situation, I simply could not bring myself to spray my plants with anything, not even a home-made organic solution like pepper spray or a diluted soap solution. The home's previous owners took perfect loving care of this garden and its soil since 1948, and I simply cannot bring myself to do anything to the plants and/or soil that might damage its quality. Our soil is famous throughout our neighborhood because it has been so well cared-for and expertly cultivated for so long. I simply can't risk changing it. Especially after how my pumpkins have taken off!!!
My pumpkins are growing like MAD. In just a few weeks, the two pumpkin plants in the back of my garden have reached out their little curly-cue phone-cord-looking vines and pulled themselves about eight or ten feet into my garden, sprawling out hugely into several of the spaces between the rows. Big, bulbous female flowers have started to sprout, which I can only pray will fill out into huge orange moon-like gourds come September. I am praying that they have really overcome the horrible onslaught of cucumber beetles, (the damage from which is evident in the picture of my pumpkins chewed-up flowers above.) But I suppose only time will tell. My success with this plant has so far been my only victory, which might account for why it makes me so happy. My neighbor's garden is really something to envy but my pumpkin plant is bigger than hers. She said she thought my pumpkin was doing great and I just beamed with pride. (Because I've never grown a pumpkin before and she really knows her stuff when it comes to gardening so I took it as quite a compliment! I think the only reason my pumpkin is doing so well is because of the conditions of my garden. Her garden is a little shady, and very full of other much more delicious and fruitful looking stuff, so the pumpkins don't have as much room as they might like to sprawl out in the brightness. My garden, on the other hand, has so much room and sun and good fertile soil, that even though I hardly do anything to the plants I've planted there, I can hardly contain my pumpkin. It's growing like a weed.
The other above-mentioned plants, however, are only doing so-so. Have I mentioned I know almost nothing about gardening?!
