Last spring, my husband and I planted our first garden. We decided to start small, and only planted a few different things to try out. Among some other produce, I wanted to plant some pumpkins and sunflowers that I could use with my preschool class. It has definitely been a learning experience for us. Out of the 12 sunflower sprouts that I planted, only 2 survived. The pumpkin plants were doing awesome until this last month, when all of our squash plants developed a powdery fungus on the leaves and started to die. Thankfully there were already plenty of Jack-Be-Little pumpkins growing before that happened.
Although I had planned to wait until October, the preschool kids didn't mind at all that we harvested them a little early due to the dying plant. They were eager to jump in and find a pumpkin...or two...or five...to pick.
Through this activity, we were able to observe and experience:
- how pumpkins are attached to the vine as they grow
- how they turn different shades of yellow/orange as they mature
- how to twist and pull a pumpkin off the vine
- that the stem is what's left of the vine after you pull it off
- that pumpkins can be a bit dirty because they are sitting on the ground as they grow
We ended up with quite a large collection of pumpkins! After our two days of harvesting, we took a final count.
Honestly, I was a bit surprised at just how many there were, but I'm excited there are so many for us to use and explore this fall!
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