The Final Harvest

4 November 2007

Kinda like the Last Supper, only Jesus didn’t show up. He never does when there’s heavy lifting to be done. My vegetable patch now stands empty, but for the markers showing where the garlic will be emerging. I harvested my pumpkins yesterday and now they are standing outside the conservatory to finish ripening off. I chopped up yards and yards of frostbitten vines – the gourds having invariably formed as far as possible from where the seed was planted – and dug the areas that I hadn’t been able to last week. I have produced so much organic matter in the patch this year that I keep wishing I had my own compost bin into which I could put the rubbish. Of course, it was the demolition of our compost bin and the path leading to it that gave me the extra ground in the first place and apparently I can’t have everything. So into brown wheelie bin it goes and then off to the council for composting. By my calculations, they owe us one metric tonne of compost by now.

When I grew pumpkins for the first time in 2002 the biggest one was a grand 2.4kg (5lb 5oz), with the other three much smaller. Two years later I had 3 gourds between 1.56kg (3.45lb) and 2.63kg (5.79lb). Ahem. Well, if it makes my previous harvests feel any better, the smallest pumpkins this year were just 15g (0.5oz) and 81g (2.9oz).

However. The other gourds were a little bigger than that.

Clockwise from top: 10.68 kg (23.5 lb), 8.87 kg (19.52 lb), 15g (0.5 oz),
81g (2.9 oz), 8 kg (17.6 lb), 7.1 kg (15.62 lb)

Add to that the pumpkin I harvested during 7 Days and I made 34.75kg (76.61lb) of pumpkin this year. Muffins for everybody!

Posted in: garden, photos

Comments

3 Responses to “The Final Harvest”

This is not an apple : dreamdust
27th September 2010 @ 11:53 am

[...] have room in the freezer for more purée by then. I wonder if I can beat the 34.75kg of the 2007 harvest? No Comments Posted in: garden, [...]
7 Days: Day 3 – Sowing seeds : dreamdust
21st March 2011 @ 4:43 pm

[...] year wait, there might just be enough room in the freezer come harvest time for me to grow a few big gourds [...]
17/30: This year’s pumpkins : dreamdust
17th November 2011 @ 11:24 am

[...] we didn’t have the best of summers, so my harvest this year was not as grand as it was in 2007. That year produced 34.75kg of pumpkin – not far of my body weight. This year, the weather, [...]