Harvest 2020
Greetings to everyone.
Xavier is on Fall Break. He has three days of it. Yesterday, we went to a park for him to run off excess energy and lunched on McDonald's.
Today, we went to a park for him to run off excess energy and lunched on KFC.
When the day warmed enough, we headed out to the pumpkin patch with parrot shears in hand.
We had an unexpected freeze last night, and the vines were hit hard. We decided to harvest the pumpkins.
Xavier wanted to start with the biggest one and work to the smallest. But first, we had to clear a path of one that was in the way of getting to the biggest pumpkin, which lay nearly in the center of the patch.
After clearing out that pumpkin, we came upon another smaller one. When we moved it, we discovered it hollowed out. A mouse had eaten it and made the shell one of its homes.
We did see the mouse scurry under the vines a number of times. Then, Xavier found its hole in the dirt. The mouse peeked out at him and Xavier got excited. "I see its nose and eyes!"
As we clipped pumpkins from their vines, Xavier discovered a large ripe tomato and a small spaghetti squash.
There were three types of pumpkin in the patch. Two varieties claiming one hundred pounds plus and one variety, called Jack-be-Little, which grew quite small pumpkins.
The Jack-be-Littles had spread themselves out throughout the patch. 31 fruit were harvested from their two vines.
The larger pumpkin vines produced fifteen viable pumpkins.
The largest, the one in the middle of the patch and the one we watched closely all summer long, weighed in at 54 pounds. Not the 100 plus Xavier had hoped to grow.
A second pumpkin grew under a thick mat of sunflowers and tall grass. It nearly beat the one in the middle of the patch, weighing in at 53.5 pounds.
The average weight of the big pumpkin haul was 34 pounds. The smallest pumpkin weighed in at 3.5 pounds. Three pumpkins over forty pounds and six over thirty pounds.
What are we going to do with all these fruit? Xavier has yet to decide. Some of the thoughts are to pick two or three to carve and donate one to his class. The Jack-be-Littles he has given a few to neighbors and the rest will be used as place settings Thanksgiving Thursday. Beyond that, he's still thinking.