Pre-dawn on the way to feed the animals, the August air was cooler than normal with some humidity. The black cat followed behind, and an owl called three times in the distant forest. The pumpkin plant seemed to grow over night with skinny tendrils, large leaves, and crawling vines reaching into the path
to the chicken coop. Soon the flowers and fruit would appear. Welcome to witch life.

For those wanting to have pumpkins ready for Halloween, Samhain, or All Soul’s Night, plant on or about July 4. The seeds like the soil warm. Selected from the display in the display at the big box store’s garden center the seeds said, “Try us!” Pumpkins prefer mounds for seeds instead of rows. This year
they made it to their hills exactly on the fourth of July! Choices this year included Triple Treat, Big Max, and the Halloween blend in Burpee’s seed packages.
Producing good eating seeds, easy to carve, and good for pies, the Triple threat yields pumpkins at 6-8 pounds. All the reasons to plant pumpkins in one packet. The fine print on the Big Max packet proclaims pumpkins that are 70” around and approximately 100 pounds. Worth a try. The packet of Halloween blend contains half-white pumpkins called “Casper” and half-orange pumpkins called “Jack O’ Lantern”. White pumpkins should be fun.

A hegelkultur begins as a tree covered with sticks, leaves, compost and more dirt. This edible garden berm takes a few years to become ready for plants while mushrooms, heat, and moisture take over the process of taking the tree to soil. As the seedlings grew and needed thinning some went into the
hegelkutur garden, just because. Welcome Big Max. That variety loves its corner in this garden. Every gardener (not just witches) hopes for a yield of at least one good size pumpkin.
The remaining pumpkin plants fail to look as exceptional, but they have produced some flowers. Just water, wait, and see…

Angela Lorio has been successfully living in both the 21st and 16th centuries since the mid 90’s. She has been a successful and award-winning educator for close to 30 years, teaching science at ALPHA Academy during the week, and educating the crowds at the Texas Renaissance Festival from the back of Sampson the Warhorse on the weekends. In her spare time, Angela writes, draws, sews, and follows her own Jedi path to light.

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