High on Pumpkins

All has been going pretty well over here at Compton Farms....

Almost too well. 

When we planted, the seed packages would all say 100-120 days for pumpkins to be grown and ready to harvest. They def took us 90 days at best. I have joked with people about having some pumpkin pie in August!!

I guess I will just blame all the rain we have had. HA!
We have been in "Save the Pumpkin" mode around here. Next year we will def plant later.  Here are a bunch of our littles I was carrying in my shirt the other day.

I have been reading up on storing pumpkins and apparently, if you do it right, they can last up to 7 months!!

THANK GOD!!!!! 

  So, almost every other day, the kids have been carrying the ready ones up to  the house. Back and forth they go from the patch to our home.

She really does wear dresses to "work" in the patch!! Such a Farm Diva 😀 

And we have been paying them for their help.

They are more pumped over getting quarters than they are a dollar!!! YES!!!

I very carefully have been bathing them in the kitchen sink or in the
tub in some bleach water.

Then, we have had them spaced out on some cardboard in our kitchen.  Here is a few by our swivel chairs and in front of our fireplace.

 I then decided that we needed to spray them with a sealer. My artistic genius brain decided to spray them inside the house. I was just lazy and didn't want to carry them all outside.  I think I was HIGH in about 20 seconds and didn't realize how strong the fumes were. Brent almost died when he came home from work with the kids in tow. I won't tell you guys what he said!!! 😳

   We aired out the house as best as we could and then I got smart and started sealing them in the garage.

 I have also been collecting seeds from the pumpkins that didn't make it. At least we are getting some seeds from them.

 And I am back on the composting kick. Hoping to make some great dirt for the spring.

I got these Pins on Pinterest on how to do it inside a plastic barrel. Here goes!

And in my dream world, we are going to have a butterfly garden too.😴

Brent always gets on to me about trying to do too much. But I just love being busy and having a bunch of stuff going on....

 Our plan with the pumpkins is to take them to the Monroe Farmers Market on Sept 23rd along with our gourds and two special Mr P's shirts. We even ordered a cool orange pop up tent with our logo. We will have our Pumpkin patch tee and a new design~ Get Fresh with a Farmer!!! hehehe

We also have some cool two toned canvas bags too...

~ Perfect for taking to places like the farmers market!! Whoop Whoop!!

This was the actual pen and ink drawing I did for the pumpkin patch shirt. Do you recognize all the characters in it?? We hope to have this shirt come in this week.

  What have I learned this year about farming pumpkins....

1) We will plant a little later (maybe first of July)

2) We will use weed barriers/blankets (the weeds are OUT of CONTROL right now)

3) We will plant ALOT more WHITE pumpkins and some of those cool blue ones

4) Gourds take a few months to dry, so we will probably start growing those in the spring so they will be dried out for the Fall.
5) Watching the Weather can be Stressful.

5) Farmers are Amazing people!!!!

And we are praying that this has been a good learning experience for the kids....Time will tell :)