Last year, my garden produced a bumper crop of pumpkins, squashes and gourds. Known to gardeners as cucurbits, these warty, ribbed, spotted, speckled, striped and misshapen oddities of the fall garden conjure up all sorts of imaginings and lend themselves to carving, piercing, painting, scraping and illuminating to frighten and delight on Halloween. Because mine were so “well formed” in their oddness, and so colorful and so very diverse in size and shape, I used them in a variety of decorative ways to celebrate the arrival of autumn and the approach of Halloween.
My new farm in Bedford has many buildings, each with walls and entrances and porches that can be transformed at any time of year with plants, flowers and wreaths. But for fall, it was so easy to gather hundreds of cucurbits and arrange them everywhere, on stoops and tables and walls and stairs. By early October, I had emptied all the exterior planters – the urns and troughs – and put away in the greenhouse the tender plants I displayed throughout summer. Without them, the buildings would look a bit barren, so the wheelbarrows of squashes and gourds came in very handy.
I have collected the seeds for all the varieties from Seed Savers Exchange, other seed catalogs, European sources, many growers and my friend Amy Goldman, author of the inspiring book “The Compleat Squash” (Artisan, 2004). I always want to grow the strangest, or the largest, or the shiniest of pumpkins, and last year I concentrated on warts, bumps, swan necks and polka dots. All the seeds were planted in an old, fenced vegetable garden that had lain fallow. We enriched the soil with truckloads of horse manure and lots of compost, lime and superphosphate. We spaced the mounds generously so the vines would be able to grow and planted the climbing types along the fencing for support.
As the pumpkins grew and took shape, many of them were cosseted in piles of straw or raised on flat stones to keep them unblemished. Some were turned several times to keep them from becoming misshapen or discolored. Large gourds hanging from the fence were offered the support of wooden boxes to sit on, and no one was allowed to walk on the vines for fear of damaging or crushing the lifelines of these amazing fruits.
This year, because of extreme variations in summer temperatures and unusual amounts of rainfall, I am afraid my pumpkin patch will not be as beautifully productive. I have been peeking under the canopy of leaves in the garden, and there are some beauties, but nothing like the ones I was able to grow last year. So many of the hard-skinned types last for months if kept dry and cool, but no cooler than about 50 degrees.
It seems as though “arrangements” is really too formal a term for my displays of pumpkins and gourds. I really just placed the fruits here and there according to color, type or size. The green gourds were so incredible that when grouped on the picnic table, they attracted a tremendous amount of attention.
We didn’t stop with just the garden produce. We also enhanced the doors to the house with bright golden and orange bittersweet wreaths. The vines are soft and so much easier to deal with than evergreens. And don’t forget to pick up the brightest fall leaves to arrange under a pumpkin or as a nest for some tiny gourds for a centerpiece.
Questions should be addressed to Ask Martha, care of Letters Department, Martha Stewart Living, 11 W. 42nd St., New York, NY 10036. E-mail to mslletters@marthastewart.com.
2006 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.
Bittersweet wreath
A bittersweet wreath is easy to make. You can pick your own vines or buy them from a florist. Mine was made on a 24-inch double-wire wreath form. Finished, it measures more than 30 inches across.
To determine the size of the wreath form you’ll need, measure the width of your door and subtract six inches. Your wreath form should be no bigger than this number. Hang it from a small brass screw on a piece of strong, clear monofilament.
1. Cut 10- to 15-inch-long pieces of bittersweet. Gather them into bundles. For a 24-inch wreath form, we used 24 bundles with about 5 branches each. For smaller wreath forms, use fewer branches in each bundle. Branches should be as fresh as possible (if cutting from your own garden, do so on the day you’ll make the wreath). Old branches won’t be malleable and will lose berries.
2. You can use either floral wire on a paddle or a roll of 20- to 24-gauge wire (available at hardware stores) to affix the bundles to the form. Attach the wire to a crossbar of the wreath form.
3. Lay a bundle on the top of the form, and wrap the wire tightly around the stems three times. Do not cut the wire.
4. Add another bundle so that its top overlaps the bottom half of the previous bundle; wrap wire around its stems. Continue adding branch bundles until you’ve covered the frame.
5. Tuck wire under form; secure with a knot, and cut. Trim wreath as desired.
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