Despite my black thumb, 6 days later there were actually some sprouts in each cup - in fact, every single seed we planted popped up! I think my black thumbs must have been evened out by the 20 extra fingers I had helping me.
They grew so much, we had to transplant them. So, one nice fall day, we took them outside. Jim cleaned up the flower bed, the boys excitedly helped dig holes and we planted the 13 or so seedlings in the 'garden' in the backyard. Unfortunately, Peter dug holes a little TOO excitedly, and dug up some of the plants at least once or twice, causing them to be replanted. But, still they survived.
Then, the rain came - pretty much almost 6 straight weeks...and the garden suffering under the inches and inches of rain we got (more than 10 inches in 2 days at one point) flooded. A sunny day here and there dried them out before another several days of rain...and by the end of it all, we had maybe 3 healthy looking plants remaining.
Then it got cold...really cold - at least for Texas in the fall.
And, then, today, (finally a dry, warm(er) day) Andrew went outside to play in the backyard. He came back inside excitedly saying, "Mom, look at the pretty flower I picked for you!!".
I thought..."odd, this looks like a zucchini flower".
And then it hit me...it was one of the pumpkins we'd planted over a month ago! It had survived being transplanted, being replanted multiple times because Peter dug it up, survived multi-inch rainfalls for approximately 6 weeks...but couldn't survive a 4 year old picking a flower for his mom.
I put it in a vase and proudly displayed it on the kitchen table. We'll try for pumpkins again maybe next year...
