The First Crop . . . Hopefully

For Yankees or Canadians the end of May might still be spring planting weather, but in Oklahoma, the heat has already set in and it feels like summer is upon us.  Now, summer holds many delightful things in store.  Blackberries.  Sunbathing.  Fireworks.  My mama's homemade ice cream.  What summer does not hold in store is good planting weather.  Just about anything I ever try to plant at the end of May sprouts and then promptly burns up.  This means that I didn't get to plant a garden this year since we moved over Memorial Day.  I brought a few tomatoes, cukes, peppers, and a squash in pots but that just isn't the same as a real garden.

We had hoped maybe to build an irrigation system this summer, but that just hasn't been the top priority. Even though we didn't get that done, Jack thought I could still do a little bit of fall garden.  I know I really won't have time to can beans and all that once school starts, so I don't think I will mess with those.  What I did want to plant were pumpkins.  We bought our seeds on the 4th of July and got them planted the next day.  This is what I found Monday:

No, it is not a worm.  It is a pumpkin sprout.  By the end of the day, most of the trays had sprouted.  It didn't hurt that it rained most of the evening and was nice and cool.  Then yesterday, we had another little shower, giving me trays of real plants by this morning.  Amazing what 2 days will do.

So sometime in the next week, Jack will till up a spot on our sandy hillside and lay some drip line.  In the meantime, we are being  very scientific with this.  While I planted, Jack started our plant journal and logged the types of seeds, suppliers, number planted, dates, etc.  We tried 4 types of pumpkin from two different seed companies, plus 2 types of gourds.  I wrote down what flats sprouted when and we will continue to log their progress . . . or lack there of.  I may be swimming in pumpkins come October if even half make it.  I will simply say that a lot of seeds fit in a flat and there are several flats.

It isn't really farming, but I like the idea of putting things in the dirt here; I was hating the idea of waiting until next spring.  Maybe in the fall there will be tiny pumpkins, giant pumpkins, and every size in between dotting our hillside, waiting to be carved or eaten.  It is a beginning.