Garden Beauties

Even in the midst of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the community garden - in which I spend blood, sweat, and tears - continued to flourish.

In preparation for the high winds, I'd staked down (with coat hangers cut to fit) the princes of the place: the pumpkins, and their vines responded by continuing to grow about six inches a day, even during the storm.

We have pumpkin flowers now, as you can see, the males peacocking out and spreading their five petals in that familiar, lush orange tint, and the females forming a more vase-like shape with the slight bulge of the baby pumpkin just below the base of the flower - see?



Bees will handle the rest, and voila !

With continued hot weather (which pumpkins love), we'll have a string of the orange squashes by All Hallows Eve. Already, neighborhood children are all atwitter with the rumor of actual pumpkins growing in their neighborhood !

My grandfather "Acie" would be proud.