Ozarks pumpkin harvest is less than normal so far: Late season heat helps pumpkins reach maturity
Ladies and gentlemen, the pumpkin harvest at Nogglestead:
One pumpkin smaller than a baseball. Our watermelon harvest was similar, but apparently the deer have cleared the melon bed pretty good as the autumn has approached. We had one mound of pumpkins, one of watermelon, and four of cantaloupe which did produce three or four melons for us.
The subhead says Late season heat helps pumpkins reach maturity. We had plenty of that. What we lacked for much of August and September was rain which is what fills them.
Overall, the gardens of Nogglestead provided us with about what we could handle, actually, except for tomatoes. I had a couple of zucchini per week for much of the summer from three mounds. I had a late harvest of a pound or two of radishes which was about what I could eat. We had enough cherries to make one pie before they disappeared. We never did get a blackberry harvest suitable for a pie. And I haven’t actually dug out my potatoes yet, so who knows what lies beneath.
The deer, though, made out like the hooved bandits they are.
