My pumpkins! ARGHH! My Tailbone, uhhhg

I didn't want pumpkins in my garden, but once I realized what was going on, it was too late to stop them. They took over. But once I had them, I was kind of excited. I was thinking of different pumpkins I could carve or ways to decorate the front of the house with them. So since they choked out other plants in my garden, I tried to look on the bright side & think, "Well, at least I'll have some pretty pumpkins." Not so.

At first I noticed a few small gourds had gnaw marks on them, perhaps from a field mouse. I didn't get too concerned. But then I saw marks on the larger pumpkins. That's always the most frustrating thing... there's plenty of food in the garden, but the varmint tends to be drawn to the biggest, nicest looking veggie, only to take one bite, ruin it, then move on. The biggest pumpkin now has crater sized bite marks out of it.

I had dozens of small decorative gourds that were almost all ruined...the seeds were spilled all over the garden. I tried to scoop up some of them, but I imagine I'll have hundreds of gourd volunteers next year. I had harvested a few early for a photoshoot, so the ones left in the garden were free for the taking I suppose.

Oh, and when I was stepping over my electric fence to get a closer look at Pumpkingeddon, my pant leg got caught on a post, I lost my footing, and fell super hard onto the edge of the raised garden bed...right on my tailbone. I'm wondering if my tailbone is broken since it's been several weeks & it's still sore. My sister once broke her tailbone & it was sore for over a month. Her doctor shrugged & said there wasn't anything he could do for it. Apparently you just need to take it easy in order for it to heal.

It's still technically the biggest pumpkin in my garden. 

The pumpkins I salvaged still have a few nicks, but at least I got a few!

Pumpkins, and Potatoes, and More Pumpkins... oh my

I've mentioned a handful of times that my garden was a little out of control with volunteer pumpkins. That issue completely overshadowed the fact that I planted potatoes for the first time. I was excited when I put the seed potatoes in the ground because I wasn't sure what to expect. Growing up my family only planted potatoes a handful of times & it never worked out very well. I remember using a pitchfork to dig them up & spearing more than a few.

My dad mentioned we had issues with the seed potatoes rotting & that there were ways to avoid that when planting. I researched a few ways to plant spuds, but in the end, I kinda just threw them in the ground. Sometimes I over plan, get overwhelmed, then just wing it :D

I have only dug up a few plants so far, but we've gotten a bunch of really nice, large potatoes.  I thought maybe there would be more potatoes, but the pumpkins really did take over, so they probably hogged all the nutrients. I know several potato plants were consumed & covered by the pumpkin vines, so I doubt much will come from half of the plants.

Next on my garden cleanup agenda is to remove some of the gourds. Something got into a few of them, and seeds are spilling everywhere. I don't think I'll let a volunteer plant take over again next year, so the last thing I want is hundreds of seeds just sitting in the soil plotting their next takeover :D

The pumpkins were fun to watch grow & take over the fence though. We have gourds on both sides of the fence & they are actually still blooming. It's interesting that the plant mostly seemed to be producing the small decorative gourds, but a few of them are quite large like an actual carving pumpkin. I would have assumed that all of them would be the same small gourds.

Pumpkins on both sides of the fence...hope the neighbors don't mind.