Visiting a pumpkin patch

On Tuesday afternoon, we went to visit the pumpkin patch that belongs to some friends. Carl had had the opportunity to visit last year (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-visit-to-pumpkin-patch.html), but this was my first opportunity to go.

Paul had told us generally where to go, so we started in field 1 -- pumpkins all over the place!

Paul came along to give us some additional guidance on where to get pumpkins (there were piles of them that he wants to get rid of as the tiller/disk won't be able to chew through piles so well) -- while he was there, he gave us an explanation of the pumpkin growth -- this is a female flower with a small fruit under it. I think he said that this fruit was a couple of days old...

... this is a male flower (no fruit)...

... a slightly larger fruit -- a couple of days more mature than the first one.

This fruit may be about a week old!

After Paul's lesson, we let him get back to his work, and we went to the piles to help him get them removed...

There were a lot more than we would be able to use (Jimmy's church was having a "carve a jack-o-lantern by using it for target practice" event on Saturday, so we got plenty for them to use!). I was moving them around so the guys could bring them from the piles to the side of the truck bed and I would try to stack them so we could fit more in...

... that's probably enough pumpkins!

Then we headed over to where the squash and gourds were located...

Wonder how he keeps the weeds down?

After adding squash and gourds and a couple of watermelons!

Yummy squash!

The fall decoration that Marion created at the sign -- she gave me inspiration so I collected some of the gourds...

These are what I collected -- they aren't arranged, but aren't they pretty?!?!?

So much fun to go and collect pumpkins and squash and gourds! We're looking forward to some pumpkin bread and squash soup!