The Pumpkin Patch:

'What happens in the pumpkin patch, stays in the pumpkin patch.'

Philippe Bélanger

I used to wonder why it was called the pumpkin patch and not the pumpkin garden.  When I was growing up, our neighbour had a large vegetable garden.  The main garden was full of the usual suspects, lettuces, carrots, radishes and cucumbers.  At the end of the garden was where they planted rhubarb, and a few feet away was the pumpkin patch.

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A patch I learned, was just an area of land, and for pumpkins, you needed quite a bit of space.  Because pumpkins 'vine out' when they grown, you can't really plant them with the rest of the garden, but in a separate patch of space.  They only grew a about a  half a dozen pumpkins, but they patch of ground they used was almost as big as the space used for the rest of the garden.

One year, when my neighbours were on vacation, some of my older brothers friends decided to 'raid' the garden.  Usually it was just racoons or deer that raided the local vegetable gardens, but sometimes, idiot preteens can be just as destructive.  They didn't really eat any of the vegetable's, they just picked them and threw them around the yard.  I remember being really upset, and being sad for my neighbours.  I also remember not saying anything.  I was a little intimidated by some of my brother's friends, and worried they'd turn their energy on me if I said anything.

I ended up being quizzed by nieghbours when they returned home.  They wanted to know if I'd seen anything, or knew who did that to the garden.  I felt incredibly guilty, but didn't tell them that I knew who did it.  I felt really guilty about it, especially when they gave us our pumpkin, as they did every Halloween.  Because the pumpkins were at the end of their property, they didn't get around to destroying them, and they were spared the same fate as the cucumbers and carrots. 

Leandro Malaquias

Thanksgiving mark's the end of pumpkin season, and is usually the last time gardeners do much work in the pumpkin patch.  They're planted in the late spring, and harvested in mid to late autumn.  Although pumpkins made beautiful decorations in October and November, by the time Thanksgiving is over, no one wants to see them.  it's like seeing people with their outside Christmas lights still turned on in February or March. 

Mark Montello

Next week, everyone' s pumpkin will be thrown out, to the back of the lawn, a compost pile, the compost bin.  Many, for those who live in rural areas,  will get taken to, or picked up for farms for the chickens, but mostly the pigs, to enjoy.  Before the season ended however, I wanted to take one last trip to the pumpkin patch, well the last one, until next year.