Pumpkins in the garden

I have always longed to be a gardener. Unfortunately, my incredible distrust of things that crawl and live in the dirt and my general paleness haven't helped much.

Luckily for me, Tom's dad is an avid gardener, and he has been teaching me the ropes!

This will be year two of pumpkin growing. Last year, we grew small organic pumpkins made primarily for eating.

It was a dream come true! It was the coolest thing to watch the progress, and pumpkins are fairly low maintenance. I love that Tom's family is perfectly fine with pumpkins taking over their yard because they were so fun to grow!

Last year, we planted seeds in four locations and two of them grew. This year, we planted seeds in five locations, and all five of those locations have started growing!

Here's the part I'm really excited for. This year, we wanted big ol' carving pumpkins. The first seed packet we bought was white and orange pumpkins, but it seemed the seeds weren't coming up. So we also bought a bag of Cinderella's Carriage pumpkins. Well, now both sets of seeds have come up, so in the fall we will have a nice variety!

White and orange pumpkins

Via

Cinderella's Carriage

Via (Also an interesting article about heirloom pumpkins)

So my thumb may not be "green" just yet, but it's getting there. I can't wait to see all three kinds of pumpkins sprawled out over the yard this year! We are also looking to see which we like best, because ideally we want to use pumpkins at our wedding next year. 

Have you grown pumpkins? Would you? Any tips on gardening when you can't handle the creepy crawling things that live in the dirt?