Like last year, the “new seeds” portion of the pumpkin crop was off to a slow start. I repeatedly replanted several sections of the various garden areas I have. Not to great results.
BUT the “toss out some old pumpkins and let them rot and self-seed” portion of the crop performed with glee! Pumpkin glee!
Keep reading to find how many pumpkins were harvested in 2025!
Especially productive was the raised bed we have way out in the pasture. That’s where I left several pumpkins from 2024: a white one my son surprised me with after a trip to a pumpkin farm stand, a smaller orange one, and one of those tiny pumpkins. They rested in the bed over winter and sprouted early. Hundreds of sprouts. I had to rip out handfuls to give room to the rest. By pumpkin harvest day, the spread was huge! We actually had to curb the growth as it headed over to the horse pasture (not ours) next door. It took many hours to harvest them. And then more moving them, ripping out the vines, stepping gently to find any lost ones.
Also productive were the tiny pumpkins planted (but also I left some from 2024, so it’s a toss-up which ones actually sprouted) in the sunflower forest bed. I love these, because they vine and grow up. We had them climbing pumpkins, shrubbery, and some of the pine tree (which began as a twig with roots from the Arbor Day Foundation, and is slowly taking over said sunflower forest and patio). I love discovering where these cuties show up.
I had some muscle to help haul in the heavy wheelbarrows!
We even ended up with a wagon of rejects (partially eaten) for the animal farm on the other side of the pasture.
Plus 40 in the trunk to go to church for a potluck!
Finally, here are the 2025 pumpkin harvest totals! Drum roll please . . .
White pumpkins: 17
Tiny pumpkins: 67
Orange pumpkins: 158
For an amazing grand total of 242 PUMPKINS!
So thankful for a wonderful harvest! Can’t wait until next year!
Just for fun, check out totals from last year here.
Monet helped me choose a winner (though mostly she wanted to chew on the papers).
Congratulations, Lisa K Davis! You have won a copy of Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle by Laura Sassi from Paraclete Press.
Please contact me with your email and mailing address so I can share them with Laura and Paraclete Press to get your copy on the way.
Thank you, Laura, for visiting the blog and sharing about friendship and pumpkins and your new book Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle! This is one of my new favorites about fall and friendship! Thank you, Paraclete Press, for publishing this adorable book and giving a copy to one of my readers.
Author of Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle (Paraclete Press, 2025) Laura Sassi is here to share a special blog post about encouraging littles to grow friendships. Paraclete Press is offering to give a copy of Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle to one reader who comments below on this blog (US only). Be sure to read to the end for details and comment on this post. Thank you, Laura and Paraclete Press!
Now, let’s hear about 5 ways to foster friendship with pumpkins. Welcome, Laura!
Five Ways to Foster Friendship with Pumpkins
Children love the pumpkin patch setting of my newest book, Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle, because we all love pumpkins! And since celebrating friendship (despite misunderstandings) is a central theme in the story, I thought it would be fun to share five ideas for fostering friendship with our kids using pumpkins! I hope they spark even more ideas for celebrating friendship, pumpkins, and thankfulness.
1. Take a field trip to a pumpkin patch with your child and a friend or group of friends. Explore the pumpkin patch together. Look for the tallest, plumpest, biggest pumpkin, etc. Count all the pumpkins you see in a row. Maybe even enjoy a cup of cider or water while sitting on pumpkins! Afterwards, give thanks together for special friends and special days like this.
2. With parental supervision, using fresh or canned pumpkin, have your child and a friend bake a pumpkin treat to eat…together! Have the children take turns as they stir, mix, pour, etc. When the treat is ready to eat, cut a slice for each friend to enjoy. Before taking that first nibble be sure give thanks, once again, for the wonderful gift of friendship and good food.
3. Ahead of time, get a pumpkin for your child and each friend. Then, set up a painting station outside and paint some pumpkins! (Alternatively, carve the pumpkins—but this is harder for our littlest friends.) As the children enjoy each other’s pumpkin-y creations, encourage them to let each other know that they appreciate their friendship.
4. Have your child and a friend gather a few of their favorite stuffed animals, then have a pumpkin-themed story time! Check my guest post at Read, Discuss, Do for some of my favorite fall picture books that include pumpkins. Do you think my newest book Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle is on the list? Yes!
5. Organize a pumpkin-themed “act of kindness” for your child and a friend to participate in together. This could be something as simple as baking a pumpkin treat (see idea #2) and then delivering it to a neighbor in need. Other ideas might include making cards that feature a pumpkin (and a short hand-written note of encouragement) to mail to shut-ins, for example, or others going through a hard time.
Wow, great ideas! Thank you, Laura! I love that you shared ideas for fostering friendships that were based on pumpkins. It’s the perfect time of year for pumpkin fun. In fact, today I had to harvest my pumpkin patch. There were SO many pumpkins (over 100!). I bet some of them would work just right with your ideas. I am thankful for God blessing our pumpkin crop this year!
Friends, Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle is an adorable book about friendship. To get your name in the hat for a chance to win a copy, make sure to leave a comment below. Maybe you can share something you enjoy doing with pumpkins and friends, or maybe you have another idea of a fun activity littles can do with pumpkins and friends. Do share! We love ideas AND littles!
A winner will be chosen in one week, Monday, October 20.
Thank you, Laura, for being our guest today! Congratulations on your newest book!
Our garden produced a bumper crop of pumpkins this year. Maybe because I replanted them over and over due to the mysterious disappearances of seeds, sprouts, and evidence of any plant life! You can read our final pumpkin counts here.
Decorating around the RV, Huckleberry Hutch, and sending home numerous glorious orbs with the grands and their parents helped disperse the wealth. But also, I baked two. Only two so far, as there are three more that remain unfrozen I can bake.
Just in case you are wondering, once the outside pumpkins freeze, I do not cook them. But after the season, we give our outdoor fall decor to the turkeys, chickens, geese, and goats who live next door. They LOVE harvest as much as we do.
From the baked pumpkin, I made 1/2 cup pucks. That’s what I’m calling them. Pumpkin pucks. Most recipes seem to call for 1/2 cup pumpkin. So there you have it. The pucks remain nicely frozen in the freezer, and I pull one out whenever I want to use one. They don’t even take that long to unthaw.
Et voila, pumpkin scones! We love these spicy treats. Any pumpkin scone recipe will work. Just double the spices. I’m serious. We love that burst of flavor. I double all the spices. We use whole wheat flour and my husband prefers his without the pumpkin spice glaze.
From pumpkin, to puck, to treat. Delish!
What is your favorite pumpkin treat? I have plenty of 1/2 cup pucks to try it!
Despite the disappointing beginning of repeated plantings, low number of sprouting seeds, and nibbling of sprouts by bird and pest alike, we had quite a successful pumpkin harvest. And I say bring on fall! I love pumpkins and I love autumn! Decorating with homegrown pumpkins is so rewarding.
Read to the bottom for the final count. The photo above shows the “big” pumpkins from the garden. In the carving world, they really are medium sized to small, but in my garden, they are the big ones. Also notice the random yellow squash. I harvested 2. I replanted zucchini and yellow squash multiple times. The end results were zucchini: 0. Yellow squash: 2.
The table above was one of our distribution points. Pumpkins available for adoption were placed on the lovely garden table made earlier this year by my honey.
Above is yet another adoption table, covered with the big pumpkins. This table was also made by my honey, but a few years back, so it has lovely weathered wood.
Above is the first harvest of the minis. So cute and adorable, and perfect for every nook and cranny. I will definitely plant these again. They are so much fun, and pretty aggressive climbers. We watched them creep up sunflowers, pine trees, and any other item taller than themselves. Note, this is another table made by the honey. This one is fresh and needs weathering.
The hand belongs to my grand, Donavyn. He is the one who arranged the minis by color. I loved that! Donavyn and Autumn were thrilled to help with the pumpkin hunt and retrieval.
This is the final harvest from the new planting box out in the pasture. Whoa! A surprising number of big and small pumpkins. Plus, I had tossed in sprouting potatoes and other compost at the “fill the box with stuff and dirt stage,” not thinking what might happen. Potatoes happened! I pulled out the “weeds,” and potatoes were attached to the bottom! How fun is that! That’s why I like experimenting in the garden.
Drum roll please. The final totals for pumpkins harvested this year are:
Love, Laughter, and Life 