When I told Doug I was heading out to the pumpkin farm, he said “don’t overdo it.” Which made me smile, because there’s a huge gap between my idea of overdoing it and his idea of overdoing it. Wells Pumpkin Farm is far too rich a resource to be denied. I had a base of Baby Boos and Jack Be Littles raised in my own garden, but they needed company. Wells Farm came through, with two little gourds that looked a lot like figs. 

A big flat Cinderella white pumpkin was completely irresistible, but would have looked lonely sitting on the hearth all by itself. I gave it some friends: a Royal Blue, which looks green, and a Warty Gnome, which looks like a warty gnome. The Cinderella was satisfyingly heavy to pick up, and rather gloriously sloshed with bits of mud and hay, adding to its autumn aura. I didn’t even have to wipe it down when I got it home, because the dirt and hay rubbed off on my flannel shirt.

But Cinderella is hardly the only story this time of year. The hall table tells a different one every time I look at it, but definitely more Halloween than happily ever after. It’s pretty dark in that hallway, but another nice warty little orange guy and a green one with white stripes brightened it right up.

Then I put out a skeletal creature with a toothy grin to darken things back down. All the pumpkins in his photo are fake, so no overdoing of the pumpkin farm was involved. Overdoing of craft shops and Halloween pop-up stores, maybe yes.

This American Tondo had great color shifts, and a super-beefy stem amusingly out of proportion to its snug round shape. It seemed dignified and comical, both at once. Its name, too – and being into words as I am, I had to look that up. Its formal name is Tonda Padania, tonda being Italian for round, and Padania a valley in Italy. All pumpkins originate in the Americas, but this variety is said to have been developed in Italy. American Tondo could be a compromise, or an argument. 

But for truly wild shapes, a Turk’s Head, a Crown of Thorns, and an Autumn Wings are a lovely tableau. It makes me happy to see them there on the kitchen counter, bringing in some autumn to compensate for the fading out of the tomatoes. Goodbye BLT sandwiches; hello pumpkin pie.