Our Mystery Garden

Last year we planted some seeds that a friend shared with us...they were Peanut Pumpkin seeds, probably one of the most "unusual" pumpkins I have ever seen...or at least seen a picture of...

I went online to find out the best way to nurture these seeds into full grown pumpkins....I found out how to tell the male flowers from the females...(It is the females that produce the actual pumpkins, but they have to be pollinated by the males, usually via bees), we had no bees :(  Oh NO!  I learned to take a small brush, brush it across the interior of the male flowers and then across the interior of the female flowers...yep I did that!  

Much to my delight 3 of the females soon had little round pumpkins under them....as the flower dried up and blew away the pumpkins grew, we watered, we moved them, we lovingly tended them and when they were about the size of a large orange...something came in the dark of the night...and drilled a tunnel through them...they shriveled up and died...:(   
My visions of a pumpkin patch....

                                                  Pumpkin Patch

OK, so maybe not one as great as Marlene's...a little smaller maybe....none the less, my vision was over...

And then, a month or so ago, my husband noticed little green plants growing where last years pumpkins had been planted (he had also buried a couple of potatoes there in the spring?).  He noticed there were potato plants coming up and something else....

Not sure but we think these may be pumpkins...since last years pollinating and loving care was for naught...I am going with benign neglect this year...:)
I realize that is obvious from the photos....

We have had little mini pumpkins grow here every few years, they seem to come up on their own, grow on their own and even survive on their own....

I guess time will tell, but for now it is our own little mystery....garden!

VE