I need advice

Firstly, I went to my favourite nursery today.

Just sayin!

I am living in curcubit hell.

The pumpkins have taken over the garden,

and are literally, climbing the walls.

This is ONE plant...and the photo

does not do it justice.

It covers a space of about 4 x 4 metres.

It has just started to set fruit,

after its astonishing rampage.

I thought it was a trombocini..

...but clearly it isn't.

Definitely, a Jap pumpkin.

Maybe a dwarf, Jap.

I think I planted some of those seeds.

If it is, the 'dwarf' must refer to the fruit,

not the vine!

Then there is this peachy fellow.

Lousy photo...but you get the idea.

I planted some Queensland Blues.

This is the right shape for a Queenie...

but the wrong colour.

These, I know, are pottimaron.

I grew these last year and loved them.

A small pumpkin with chestnut coloured flesh.

Very tasty - and they stored well.

I am thinking that maybe there has been 

a bit of hanky-panky in the pumpkin patch.

Could the pottimaron 

have consorted with 

the Queensland blue 

to create the offspring

pictured above?

You gotta love cucurbit

See the pumpkin in the middle?
It is about a metre off the ground. 

Gardening can be frustrating and disappointing sometimes.  Things die, or they do magnificently then the weather or some sort of pest intervenes to rob you of the pleasure of admiring and/or eating what you have grown.  This is why I love growing cucurbits...squashes, pumpkins, zucchini and the like.

 They are such generous plants, filling up every empty space they find, 

climbing up when they run out of space.  

See the corn in the photo above...overtaken!

I love their big leaves that droop in the heat

then bounce back when it cools down and they get a drink.

Then of course there is the fruit.

It almost grows before your eyes.

Pumpkins keep for months and are such a versatile veggie.

Best of all, you can shove a few seeds in the ground 

and when they transform the garden into a jungle 

people walking past comment on how good your veggie patch 

looks and what a fabulous gardener you are.

I am so smitten.