Uppa Downa Season

It froze last night. 27 degrees per the outdoor thermometer I installed so I could torture myself with hard, cold facts.

Killed a whole bunch o' my bitsy baby seedlings. Including the Tiny Tim Heirloom Tomatoes, who were shivering under a blanket. And, making short work of my latest endeavor, the Surprise! It's a Big Ass Pumpkin!

Pumpkins, plural, actually. These 300 pound bruisers were destined for great things as summer biking season rolled on.

Thanks to heaps of new home construction, my country cottage now sits on a busy thoroughfare. Cars, cyclists, dogs with and without owners, plus dedicated speed walkers in all shapes and sizes.

To be clear, I have hated this change in venue. I can't ever have a moment to myself in those street gardens. But, I came up with this grand idea to plant a curiosity out there... giant pumpkins. Who, over the course of our summer, would grow to magnificent proportions. When people strolled by, they'd see the progression, from tiny to huge. All summer long, growing bigger and bigger. So big that come Halloween we'd be carving them where they rested ~ because nobody, save for the Incredible Hulk, could hoist them into a wheelbarrow.

Wouldn't that have been the coolest thing?

Ah well, onward and upward. I've no one to blame but myself. We do not appear to be having any type of predictable seasons. Just the uppa downa routine of extreme weather patterns. Two days ago, I was tugging at my weeds and melting from the heat. Now the furnace is blasting away.

I think the hardest part of this new normal is how dramatically the times of our growing season (if you can call it that) have changed. Toasty warm in November. Flowers blooming. Blasts of winter in June. RIP Pumpkins.

Is it just me? Or, is this summer totally messed up? 

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* Feel like planting a show stopper? Pick up some Dill's Atlantic Giant Pumpkin seeds. In order to grow them in the mountains, start them indoors 60 days prior to planting. These big dudes need a long growing season, in order to strut their stuff.

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