August is a great time if you’re a plotter. All of the vegetables we planted in May, cultivated in June, and watered every day in July because of the drought, are now ripening and ready to eat.
I’ve had zucchini on the table since June and right about know I would rather pluck out my eyelashes one by one than have to eat another zucchini. I’ve had fried zucchini, baked zucchini, grilled zucchini, and zucchini on a stick. I’ve grated it, pureed it, cubed it, sliced it, julienned it, and froze it. I give it away to the neighbors, the mailman, and total strangers I bump into on the street. I have zucchinis up the gourd and have even gone so far as to leave them on the doorsteps of unsuspecting neighbors on the next block. It’s like leaving a baby on the doorstep but with less crying.
The tomatoes are also peaking and I am dealing with a bumper crop of the red orbs. In addition to eating them at every meal, I have learned how to make tomato sauce, salsa, and pico de gallo. Now I’m developing techniques for making my own ketchup but I don’t know whether to make ketchup or catsup. It’s a condiment conundrum.
As bounteous as my garden is right now, I can’t hold a candle to the output coming from the plots of the man known only as The Pumpkin Guy. The Pumpkin Guy tends four contiguous plots for a total of 2400 square feet. All he plants on his plots is pumpkin seeds and from the entire acreage he will harvest only four pumpkins…four huge-ass pumpkins.
The Pumpkin Guy raises four ginormous pumpkins in excess of 1,000 pounds each every year. He starts out with lots of the gourds but slowly and meticulously he thins them out so that only four remain. Then he sells these behemoths to hotels and party planning companies who use them as eye-catching decorations during the fall season. After they are done being used as decorations, they are hollowed out for low income housing for the Peter-Peter family.
I asked TPG why he grew such big pumpkins and he said that he used to grow zucchini but a 1,000 pound pumpkin makes people smile while a 1,000 zucchini makes them run away and hide in fear that someone will leave it on their front porch.
The Pumpkin Guy’s gourds weigh several hundred pounds right about now but they are growing every day. I can’t wait until harvest time…just to see how they do it. I suspect a that heavy machinery is involved. Stay tuned.
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