Pumpkin Passion

We began our exterior decorating for Fall this past weekend. I almost wrote “finished” instead of “began” in the previous sentence but we tend to collect pumpkins for the porch display throughout the month of October. This is our first year with the blow-up cat in the shoe. I love how it looks a little like a retro Halloween postcard.

Lowe’s home improvement store has a few pumpkin airblown decorations this year. They have a single 3 foot tall pumpkin, a skinny 9 foot stacked pumpkin display and a 12 foot fat stacked pumpkin display. I wanted the 12 foot tall pumpkins but it seemed a little much.

Anyway, I love how the decorating turned out. We even got the seal of approval from one of the neighbor kids. About 5 minutes after getting it blown up a young kid walked by and said, “I saw you putting the cat up from across the street and I think it’s hilarious!” So cute.

Via Frog on the Pumpkin comes an adorable video featuring two things I love: pumpkins and owls. It’s totally worth watching eventhough it seems to take a few second for the video to load and there may be a commercial at the beginning.

la chouette alexandre so the owl
Uploaded by the_atlantide. – Discover more animation and arts videos.

Wow, what a difference a month makes! These suckers grow FAST! My garden is now completely overwrought with pumpkin plants. In fact, my poor bell peppers and jalapenos are fighting for some serious space. I have 8 fully thriving pumpkin plants. I am not sure what type survived, I believe two of the plants are the white pumpkins and the other six are your typical orange. What a surprise we will have in the fall. They are still fairly contained in the garden, but I am expecting them to start creeping on to the lawn this month. If they grew this fast from May to June, I can only imagine how fast they are going to grow now that we are coming into the full charge of summer. I do not see any baby pumpkins just yet, but the little corkscrew vines are starting.

No wonder people garden, it is totally fun! It was pretty tedious clearing the old plants out, but once I started planting it has been pretty easy and it is really neat to watch everything flourish! Along with the pumpkins, I had mentioned in my first blog posting that I had planted summer squash, and red bell pepper. I have since added jalapenos, more colors of bell peppers, mint and basil. Unfortunately, we have had a casualty, the parsley did not make it. I believe it was a combination of factors: First, the summer squash was not a good neighbor for the parsley. It took over the whole area and I think it just strangled it. Second, the space was in full sun. Parsley is a little more delicate than I though and I should have babied it in a windowsill in the house. However everything else is just beautiful, so I shall grieve and move on.

Why does Pumpkin Eatin’ Season always equate with really-busy-at-work? I’ve been in the office two days this month and out all the rest at meetings. Last Friday I was stuck in the Oakland Airport for a few hours and came across the new Martha Stewart Living magazine. I only buy it once a year for the Halloween issue, which is simply spectacular and this year is no different.

Instead of giving you a preview of how great the magazine is, I’m going to make the suggestion that you check out The Baking Bird blog. Kylie has already written a post on the issue and has even gone back to highlight great pumpkin recipes from previous years.

I’m not only suggesting that you check out her post because I now don’t have to write one but I’m also making the suggestion because I love her blog and she’s a true pumpkin lover. She has a vegan pumpkin cinnamon roll recipe that has me drooling all over my keyboard. Oy Vey!

It’s 103 degrees around here. The weather couldn’t feel further from Fall but our spirits have already eagerly accepted that the seasons will eventually change. We started our Fall tradition of watching all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. That show is pretty much shot perpetually in Fall. It makes sense. The show was supposed to take place in Connecticut but was actually filmed in Burbank, CA. It couldn’t be easy creating those winter episodes with Luke’s Diner buried under 4 feet of snow while the temperature outside was probably closer to 80 degrees.

Not only do I know that Fall is close because the Gilmore Girls marathon has started but also because i keep hearing about new Fall treats. For instance, Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts now has a limited edition Frosted Pumpkin Pie. This is one of those things that makes me wonder why waited so long. Of course there should be a pumpkin pie Pop-Tart! If you see it, please let me know where you found them. These are a 2010 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season Must-Have.

If I make up tomorrow and find that the Frosted Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts are just a dream, there’s always the d.i.y. option here.

So the porch worked. Sometimes a little sunlight goes a long way…I was able to get 4 plants to sprout. So 4 out of the 24 planted is not great odds, but I am getting impatient with these little greenhouse trays. In fact I am growing more mold in some of them than I am actually pumpkin plant. Consequently I gave them to Mother Nature and planted them directly in the garden.

When I was planting the baby sprouts, I did go through the other sections in the seed tray and I noticed that several of the seeds had developed roots but had not gotten as far as sprouting leaves. So I shoved those in the ground too. I figure if it was on its way, then hopefully the actual soil, sun and water of being outside will further the process along. We shall see! My baby tiny garden is on its way! If in a few weeks if I have killed everything, I will just resume my regular tradition of buying my pumpkins at the local grocery store in October. I will keep you posted.

Pumpkin Spice Lattes are officially back at Starbucks today. It’s a rough day for me because I’m trying to kick the caffeine habit. It’s almost been 3 weeks without coffee. There was a tall Frappuccino slip up but that resulted in an almost instant migraine that lasted for two days. I keep going back and forth between really wanting one and really not wanting a migraine. My problem was solved when Shannon brought me a Pumpkin Spice Blended Creme. So delicious and caffeine free!

In a week’s time we have a couple of sprouts, I am so proud! However, before I run around the house in exuberant cheer… the remaining 23 are yielding absolutely nothing thus far. They seem to be a little too wet…enough so that I seeing what appears to be mold growing on a few. With that being said, I understand that this is a learning experience and I am just going to try things out.

I removed the netting that was around each peat pellet, I was hoping that this would encourage better water evaporation. Then I moved the little guys outside just for a mini field trip. We get some afternoon sun on our front porch and I thought that maybe the little greenhouse carton was not warming up enough. The directions say not to put them in direct sunlight, so I have used a shoe box to shield them from the light but still give them the actual warmth.

I am going to do this for about another week and see if I can yield better results…if not I shall go to the store and buy the already started pumpkin plants and use those instead. I am not above admitting defeat with seeds, but I refuse to surrender completely. We WILL have pumpkins growing in the back yard this Autumn!

What a weekend! Here we are only a few weeks into Pumpkin Eatin’ Season and I’m pretty sure I’ve already found my favorite pumpkin treat of 2010. Magnolia Bakery, a staple of the New York cupcake scene, just opened their first west coast store a few weekends ago. I’d visited one of their New York stores and loved it. The aesthetic of the store is my aesthetic: bright and cheery with a giant dollop of 1950’s retro. Even their cupcakes are simply beautiful. The colors remind me of Easter pastels and their cupcake decorations are reminiscent of a sophisticated kindergarten birthday party. So cute!

How do they taste? Yummy delicious! They’re the only store-bought cupcake that truly tastes homemade to me. They keep their flavors fairly basic. Combinations of vanilla and chocolate make up the bulk of the cupcakes in the case. Lately cupcake stores, at least those in Los Angeles, pride themselves on coming up with the craziest flavor combinations: sea salt caramel, cookie dough, cosmo, watermelon, etc. Magnolia doesn’t need to overwhelm your taste buds with crazy flavors because the simplicity of their flavors allows the quality to come through.

While the cupcakes and banana pudding (equally as amazing) would have left my taste buds dancing for weeks, they also had a Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust!!! I’m always raving about the Pumpkin Bars at Creative Cakey and these are equally as good. The gingersnap crust pairs wonderfully with the creamy spiciness of the pumpkin cheesecake. These are completely craveable. I’m drooling right now just thinking about them.

If you’re not near Los Angeles or New York, you can pick up the second book from Magnolia Bakery, More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey’s Home Kitchen, which has the Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Pecan Crust recipe. I can’t wait to try it at home because the only thing that would have made it any better would be a little more salt in the crust.

I’m beginning to think I’m an east coast girl trapped on the west coast. I would choose Magnolia Bakery over Sprinkles any day—not to mention Five Guys over In-N-Out.

Yvette and I have found a spot in our backyard in one of the flower beds and our beginning the pumpkin planting process. I cleared the current occupant and tilled up all of the soil. We had purchased two bags of top soil called “Amend”, which supposedly was good for planting flowers and plants (says the 18 year old cashier at the store). It was organic and enriched with plant food already. After the flower bed was all tilled up and the old plants removed, I emptied the bags of top soil and spread it evenly throughout the garden.

We had purchased a small “flower bed” fence which was about 24” tall to keep our dog out of it. Along with the pumpkin seeds, we also bought small plants that were ready to plant in the ground: summer squash, a red bell pepper plant and some parsley. I chose one end and planted all three of them. The remaining part of the garden will be for the pumpkins (once they germinate and are ready for the outside).

Though our flower bed is somewhat small, I have heard that pumpkins do not get a deep root system. The biggest challenge will be the space needed for the pumpkin vines. Several websites say to just let them grow out on the lawn (as they do not attach past their root system-the site of planting). It can be inconvenient, but it is only for a few months. Now we have a plan and are set to grow!

Along with the Sesame Street greenhouse, we also purchased a seed pack of white pumpkins, a second green house tray and a little individual cup/kit pumpkin thing. It is like a personal greenhouse for just a few seeds. It was cute and Yvette had to have it.

You start with adding warm water to the peat pellets which are inside the greenhouse tray. As the water penetrates them they expand. You tear open the little netting at the top of the pellet and bury a couple of seeds into each one. I then added a little bit more water as I thought they felt a little dry when I was planting my seeds. Note: I did not have any excess water floating in the tray, the peat pellets were completely expanded and saturated, but there was no excess water.

I completed this process with both trays, all of the seeds and the individual pumpkin cup. The instructions said to pop the clear lid on them and put them in a warmer space but somewhere they will not get direct sun. I chose the top of a bookshelf in our “library”. This room does not get excessively cold and the seed trays are out of the way. So keep your fingers crossed that nature smiles down on our little experiment!

I will post periodically to show you our progress, probably a couple of times a month. If you have any tips for me, please leave a comment, I would love to have some advice! Autumn will be here before we know it (I get so excited thinking about it)! Though Yvette and I are completely falling into our “summer mode”, beach, barbeque, road trips, etc… I always keep a special place in the back of my head for fall, it is my favorite season. Until we meet again…