Ghost Upon the Floor

     Welcome back, October. How I have missed you. The weather, the cool, the colors begin. The harvest, the abundance, the peak of life. Is there a better way to ring the month where autumn takes full hold, than in a pumpkin patch?

     I don't believe so. This past Sunday, a visit to Kelkenberg Farms in Akron, New York. A warm morning, a quiet farm of several acres. Fourteen dollars allows one a ticket to the corn maze and the pumpkin patch. We wandered around the farm before the horse-drawn ride out to the pumpkin patch. We saw a charming old dog blind in one eye, the chickens, the goats, the horses. We walked through rows and rows of mums, past corn stalks for sale and into a country store that smelled of candle wax and pumpkin spice.



      And then we boarded the cart. The horses take you a distance from the main farm, and out to the pumpkin patch. Having not been in such a pumpkin patch for many years, the childlike glee that filled my Halloween haunted soul was almost too much to take. Unlike many farms and places where pumpkins are sold, Kelkenberg allows you to pick any pumpkin, regardless of size. We walked amongst the rows of pumpkin vines, bright orange decaying pumpkins, perfectly shaped pumpkins, enormous pumpkins. In search of the great pumpkin, the one I would take home.



      In the end, I decided on the largest pumpkin I'd ever brought home. Not the biggest one from the patch of so many, but the largest one the best for carving that I could find. This decision I regretted almost instantly on the walk back through the patch, to where the horses would pick us up and take us back to the farm; I persevered. Stopping more than once to rest. And am glad I did. Finding our pumpkins, washing off the mud in a basin with a pump. Exploring the corn maze, with friends, a candy apple and cider in hand. The perfect way to welcome the season of the witch, the month of the orange glow.

     Welcome, October.

      It is with some sorrow that I annouce the passing of one of my two pumpkins. The first one which started to grow I soon came to find, after harvesting, had likely been left on the vine too long. My pumpkin had started to rot from the inside. What had once been firm and strong started to soften and cave in from the top. Next year, if I have any pumpkins, I will be sure not to leave them on the vine too long.

 Without researching online whether or not the seeds of a rotting pumpkin could keep, or be roasted, I decided to try and save the seeds anyway. I cut into the soft pumpkin skin and removed all the pumpkin, as much of the seeds as I could, and submerged the pumpkin in water to separate the seeds. It remains to be seen how they will turn out.

 Before throwing away the pieces of rotted pumpkin, I did the pumpkin right and cut a face into one of the firmer pieces. All this work, all the planting and watering and weeding and tending to harvest the thing-- all to cut into it for seeds and a face.

 In happier pumpkin growing related news, I have a third-- smaller, but very strong-- pumpkin still mostly green, but soon ready to harvest. I had not placed much faith in this third pumpkin; however, the plant I believe will soon prove me very wrong.

 October, finally, in all its leaf falling, burning red, cool nights of glory, is here. At once, the joy of knowing that it is the most wonderful time of the year, and the panic that sets in knowing that never, whatever I do, will it be enough.

 This year I have something different, however. My efforts caused these pumpkins to grow. I can now say that I have grown pumpkins-- only two, but two nonetheless, and two bright, round, beautiful orange pumpkins I could not be more proud of.

 I bought the plants this spring, from a local herb and plant farm, grown organically. I wasn't even sure at the time if I would find or have a place to plant them in, let alone if they would grow. I did, and grew they did. With some love, care and a lot of rain that I am sure did not hurt things.


 What better way may there be to start off October, than a harvest of pumpkins?






 Should you be as fortunate to make it as far as I did in the pumpkin growing experience, I found this video from the University of Maine helpful in the harvest.