Pumpkin Pickin'

Today was a beautiful sunny October day. Perfect for traveling to the Pumpkin Patch and picking us some choice orange Cucurbitaceae. I bet you thought pumpkins were vegetables right? Well turns out those orange, sometimes green, yellow and even white objects are really fruit!

In fact, it's a berry. Pumpkins belong to the family Cucurbitaceae, which includes cucumbers, melons, squash, and gourds. Within this family is the genus Cucurbita which includes gourds, winter and summer squash, and all varieties of pumpkin. There are four species that are considered "pumpkins," but only one is the species most people would recognize as the traditional pumpkin used for carving jack-o-lanterns and baking pies.

The cutest pumpkin variety is the Californian, as seen below:





























































So off we went in the middle of our ever so productive Sunday to drive 1/2 an hour north to the Reid Pumpkin Patch just past Oliver. Hauling Big B away from his insulation and drywall project he has going on in his garage was easier than I thought.
I on the other hand had just started the daunting task of vacuuming the entire house: corners, blinds, ceilings, and light fixtures included. I wasn't too thrilled with putting the hose down as I was right in the thick of it, but when I heard Big B beckoning, I knew it was now or never.





The Patch was quite the hoppin' place. We bumped into another O'Town family and the kids had fun romping around together. Pumpkins picked we headed back to the scale, weighed up and paid our dues. I don't know what I am going to do with all of them yet. I have read some pretty delicious recipes such as pumpkin butter and home made pumpkin pie.

They'll probably just sit on the front porch unmolested until some hormonal prepubescent teenager makes road art out of them. Oh my poor pumpkins, hopefully that isn't their fate!