Summer Solstice

Today the sun cast its light light longer than any other day of the year and that makes it a notable day to start my blog. It was light outside here in Philadelphia until after 9 pm. I didn't take note of the moment when the sun officially set or when it looked "officially" dark, but I looked it up online and found a table that cites sunset was at 8:33 pm and the length of this day here in Philly was 15 hours, 59 seconds.

So about the rogue pumpkin. Last fall I bought a medium-ish pumpkin and left it outside all through the winter. It became deflated-looking, collapsing into itself. Once things thawed a bit in February or March I tried to pick it up to throw it out, but the stem tore off in my hand and all I could do was drop the soggy heap of rotted skins, pulp and seeds into a clay pot I happened to have sitting next to it. Later in the spring a green leaf-shoot emerged from the pumpkin carcass. Now as a witness to its lifecycle, I definitely couldn't throw it out, so I planted the shoot and a few other seedlings, which had also started, in the corner of our small, city backyard.

I knew pumpkins were vine plants and needed a good amount of space, but somehow I believed that if these pumpkins took root, and grew into healthy plants, and bore pumpkins, they would do so in a bonzai manner, keeping tight and small in the 2' x 2' space I alotted them. Well, they have no concern that they're growing in a city backyard and have become huge plants already -- and it's only June. It's months until pumpkin season. One in particular, is advancing out onto the grass, heading for one of our Adirondack lawnchairs, vine tentacles outstretched like a hands feeling for an anchor to wrap itself around. It's almost as if it "sees" the chair and set out to reach it. Fascinating and a little creepy. This is the rogue pumpkin. I suppose I will have to tame this vine, but for know I'm watching and waiting to see what it does.