Agriculture Advice from The Kid
When my mobile rang this afternoon and the display said it was an Anonymous Call, I knew it had to be my parents. They call every weekend, around the same time, and hardly anyone else comes up on my phone as Anonymous.
I answered with my customary "Good Morning, Sunshine!" and was greeted with a confident "Hi, Auntie Ann!" What a pleasant surprise - a phone call from The Kid. I was excited to ask him for agriculture advice regarding my recent pumpkin difficulties.
First, he was bursting with news. He wanted to tell me that he was wearing his clone trooper costume because he was going to Boo in the Zoo. After a detailed description of said costume, I had an opportunity to consult my favourite expert.
Me: "Hey, The Kid, I need some advice on pumpkins. Do you think you could help me out?"
The Kid: "Sure!"
Me: "I'm having a problem finding nice, big, orange pumpkins here. Do you know what I can do to get a nice, huge pumpkin to carve for Halloween?"
The Kid: "OK, what you need to do is not pick the pumpkin so soon. Leave it on the plant for as long as you can, that way it will grow bigger."
Me: "That's great advice for when I grow my own pumpkins, but right now, I can only buy them in the store. And the store only has little pumpkins and most of them are half-green and don't look very nice."
The Kid: "Why don't you just go to a pumpkin farm?"
Me: "We don't have pumpkin farms in Ireland."
The Kid: "Really? Oh. Then I guess you will have to grow your own. Just make sure you leave them on the plant for a really long time because the longer they're on the plant, the bigger they'll grow."
This is what I love about The Kid. No matter the topic, he's able to come up with cogent, practical advice without any hesitation.
posted by -Ann @ 3:23 p.m.
8 Comments:
Yes, I know, the ones in Lidl are fairly small, compared to a home grown pumpkin anyway. :-)
I think The Kid is class. I love his answers, every time.
The Kid is brilliant. My little guy is dressing up in Star Wars: The Clone Wars regalia for Halloween this year, too. I think it's all the rage with the 10 and under set.
you'd better get planting, ann. halloween is almost here.
(here in st. paul, by the way, it's called the ZooBoo.)
Ahh, the Star Wars costumes. This year I have one 4 year old Boba Fett. And a 7 year old Indiana Jones.
We grew our own pumpkins last year. They didn't get too big, but they were orange.
Our zoo calls it "Howloween."
Babaloo - I was so mad, I saw the outline of an excellent pumpkin near the bottom of the bin at Lidl. But after I'd removed nearly half the pumpkins in the bin to get down to the one I wanted, I found it was entirely smashed in underneath!
Kaycie - Who knew? I guess I'm all retro with my love of the original 3 Star Wars movies.
Laurie - You're right! What am I doing sitting around blogging when there's pumpkins to be growing.
PC - Orange and non-blemished would be an improvement. I like the name 'Howloween'.
But why don't the Irish know how to grow proper pumpkins? It's not like it is high science. It's like the Kid said, you just leave them on the plant for a long time until they get big enough.
I asked The Kid what advice he had for before my 5k. And without thinking twice he said, 'first don't cross your arms over your body.' Most runners don't know that!
Irene - I think it just doesn't get warm enough here during the summer. I suppose if one were to use a polytunnel, you could improve your pumpkin size. I did see a picture in the paper of a woman down near Blarney who gew a 70-pound pumpkin.
MB - Ha! So THAT'S what I've been doing wrong all these years. :)
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