The Summerland Advocate-Messenger - Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community

It’s “peek time” in the garden. I don’t mean peak time which is the finalization of time in the garden when everything is at its best. It’s time to take a sneak look at what is happening with some of the produce in the vegetable garden.

I’ve been scouting the pumpkin patch for well over two months but suddenly the vegetation is so thick that I can’t see the pumpkins that are buried in the patch.

So I wait.

It’s the same with potatoes. Especially sweet potatoes. Their crop is underground and it isn’t time to harvest them. So I wait.

As August is about to flip to September, we have already dug the onions and know the result of that crop and we have also started digging the fingerling potatoes. Although we have more rows of those yummy little nuggets to harvest, we do know the first row was a good harvest.

I really do like peek time in the garden. The anticipation gives me a rush that only a gardener knows.

Will the sweet potatoes be small or large? Will there be plenty to share? Will the onions that are currently drying keep well through the winter?

While the onions and potatoes are part of the food chain that helps keep grocery costs down, the pumpkins remain at the top of my “what is happening in the garden” list.

I planted little pumpkins, gourds and a new to me variety of pumpkin, Grizzly Bear.

Before the massive green leaves covered the patch I caught glimpses of tan-colored round pumpkins that I estimated to be about eight to 10 pounds with warts. The warts are just what the variety promised and they really look like peanut shells on the pumpkins.

The pumpkins leaves and vines continued to grow and engulf the pumpkins. I am so tempted just to wade into the patch and investigate. I don’t as I do not like the sound of snapping vines as they are stepped on.

In my garden it will be a couple of weeks until peek time. Then suddenly the sea of green leaves will wither and I will be able to see the pumpkin harvest. At this point, I hope that the bugs aren’t feasting on my prize Grizzly Bears.

I do like pumpkins in a wide variety. I also like the fall season when temperatures begin to cool and the harvest is underway. The warm colors of oranges and browns also make things cozy inside the house and outside in the decor.

Mums, yummy smelling candles and wax melts, along with faux pumpkins and real pumpkins will soon fill homes and porches.

The large, deep green leaves which once hid pumpkins will be forgotten quickly once they dry. The pumpkins that hid under them for months will take center stage.

Growing pumpkins is fun. First you pick a variety to plant, then you wait for the seeds to germinate and pop through the spring soil. There are always battles with bugs and other vine crop problems in the growing season. The wait is so worth it all.

Once you get to take the clippers and snip off that first stem and pick up that pumpkin, all the care and work is forgotten. Placing that pumpkin in your landscape is just as fun as scouting the patch during the summer.

Better yet is being able to share your pumpkin crop with not only children but also with adults who know what you have gone through to grow it. When they exclaim their excitement of receiving a pumpkin, that is the peak time of the pumpkin patch.

I am anxious to place pumpkins in the flower garden out my kitchen window and then both peek and peak time in the veggie garden will be fulfilled for me.