Tell Me Thursday - Halloween Pumpkins

That huge pumpkin plant that I posted yesterday?  It's growing in my backyard.

Last Halloween, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden, just like we have done for 8 or more years.  They always have a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and the kids all are able to choose a pumpkin.  It's an event we always look forward to in October.

The last couple years, the boys have put their pumpkins out in a planter box to watch them decompose after Halloween.  It's been a great learning experience as they rush out to see what bugs are in it, and how much it has dried out, disappeared, etc.  (I have a black thumb . . . good intentions . . . but rarely successful, so the planter box is usually empty.)

This year, I started again -- planting some sunflowers and a few tomato plants.  And the kids noticed that something that didn't look like a weed was growing in the planter box.  So I began watering it.

And realized after a few weeks that it was a pumpkin plant!  You can see that it has grown very large.  It is also full of blossoms, and the 2nd picture yesterday showed a very tiny pumpkin that was the result of one of the first blossoms.

We're doing our best to water it, and I hope that it survives the worst of the summer so that the kids can choose their pumpkins right in our own backyard this October!