Saturday, September 19, 2009

pineapple plants a pumpkin patch

You may recall that in July I claimed to become a pumpkin farmer. Well, a few weeks into the pumpkin growing, I took my sweet little plants outside for a good soak.  And then I forgot to bring them back in.  They died a tragic, heat related death.  So, I planted a new batch-o-pumpkins.  After weeks of tending to my plants and a week of acclimating them to the outdoors, today was the big day.

When I started, I have a weedy, unruly patch of yard that I blocked off last year.  I never got around to building beds for a garden.



First I need to back up the story.  There once was a HUGE tree in my backyard.  It was probably one of the oldest elm trees in the neighborhood.  However, we have been in a drought for the past two years and had extreme heat this summer.  This lovely tree dropped a huge limb on my roof and slowly began to die.  I had the tree taken down.



And then I had the tree guys turn it into mulch and leave it in the front yard.  Much to my neighbor's dismay, it has been sitting in that huge pile for over a month.  Come on!  It has been too hot to do anything with it.



My original plan was to dump so dirt piles in my weedy patch and see who would win - the pumpkins or the weeds.  But I just couldn't do it.  So I went back to my original plan that never came to fruition.  So I started by using the old newspapers to act as a weed barrier.



And then I put a whole bunch of mulch around the beds to cover up the pretty, pretty newspaper.



And then I put a whole bunch of dirt and compost in the beds and mixed it up.  And I built some mounds for the plants and covered that with even more mulch.



Bring in the pumpkins...



And then I put 'em in the dirt and watered them real good, like.



Now I just have to finish the other half of my garden to put in some other veggies I picked up at the garden center when I went to get more dirt.  Tomorrow I take the rest of the pumpkin plants to the Pineapple Parents for their pumpkin patch.  I am a gardening fool.

3 comments:

The Illegal Alien said...

You earthlings are curious creatures.

Chick_In said...

Hooray! At least someone's gardening season isn't ending...we must find a way to share weather between Austin & Chicago. Everyone's lives would improve.

pineapple said...

Gorp: yes, we are!

Chick_in: I'm just getting started!