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Me and @beautifultrees07 are plotting to do a secret guerilla pumpkin patch in a neglected waste patch by a local freeway. It’s gonna look cute!

Update! We cleared this area of invasive (and abrasive!) weeds, hoed the rocky and barren soils, amended the earth (with a layer of straw for drainage and to hold moisture/encourage mycelium), created 18 pumpkin mounds of different varieties (Atlantic Giant, Jarrahdale, Lumina, Cinderella, Jack O’ Lantern, Musquee de Provence, and Red Warty Thing) in 96 degree weather so like, don’t even question our love for pumpkins and soil restoration! We added flowers for beautification and to attract pollinators. We moved discarded mattresses, furniture pieces, and removed bags of trash, glass, and dog poop. The pumpkin vines will reach maturity in October and we’re looking forward to the growth!

Update! Remember her??? Be careful who you call ugly!! Our guerilla garden/secret pumpkin patch is really shaping up! Pumpkin vines are growing strong and healthy, cucumber plants are producing, and corn stalks are growing taller! This lot used to be filled with dog poop, mattresses, and discarded furniture! Hopefully we’ll have pumpkins soon. Me and my two sisters laid all the groundwork for this garden and it’s being maintained mostly by one of my sisters and other volunteers. We love to restore the soil, revive barren land, and coax pumpkins from the earth just in time for Hallow’s Eve ~ 

Another update from August 5:

Foliage is thick and lush and baby pumpkins are forming! We’re excited for the turn of the season and to have a little pumpkin patch ready for Halloween

An update from today, August 7th! (btw you can follow the instagram page for this group garden @threesisters_garden). We have a lot of different pumpkin varieties! This one below is Atlantic Giant:

This next one is Red Warty Thing (yknow the one that’s red with warts)

And the one below is Jarrahdale (will be a silvery green pumpkin)

Update from August 16! Pumpkins are growing bigger and stronger by the day!

Look at the Red Warty Thing variety below! She is growing warts and we couldn’t be more proud!

If you want more pumpkin updates, you can follow our instagram page (@threesisters_garden)

Another update from today, August 23: the Red Warty Thing pumpkin has grown more warts!

Update to the thread: we harvested everything and they’re beautiful! Stunning!

Some pumpkins were stolen before they reached their full potential but these are the ones we managed to harvest! There are 5 different varieties in this line-up (from left to right, Jarrahdale, Jack O Lantern, Cinderella, Red Warty Thing, and Lumina). It’s wild to see how this little neglected strip of earth by the side of the freeway could produce such beautiful pumpkins with a few soil amendments and TLC

The pessimist in me is SHOCKED this wasn’t either vandalized or uprooted by local government employees.  GLAD IT WAS SUCCESSFUL.

The secret to success with this is that noone knows what’s supposed to be going on with this stretch of dirt. Everyone’s gonna look at the pumpkin patch and think ‘hey that’s a cool thing the city did!’. You can just plant stuff wherever because noone knows you’re not a contractor. You could probably put down a sign somewhere declaring it a community garden space and people would start planting stuff there, because who else would put a sign there if not the city? In fact, I think I’m gonna do that with the piece of grass behind my apartment

Basically @hyperactivehedgehog is right! We wore neon reflective vests while working on this and everyone assumed we were sent by the city or some official group. Even my friends and coworkers (at my day job) assumed I was being paid to do this because they saw pictures of me in my reflective orange vest. The city does have a budget to maintain neglected areas like this, but they don’t make it a priority to provide regular trash services or maintain it like the neighbors would like. So we essentially did the city’s job for them, free of charge and on our own dollar. We even made the sidewalk accessible by trimming back the weeds hanging over it and removing the trash blocking it. It’s something no one can be mad about. I think it also worked because the neighbors hated that everyone regarded the area as a dumping ground. So when anyone volunteers to clean it up, they’re just glad the trash is gone. 

If anything this just shows the power of a reflective vest. Put on a hard hat, work pants and you’ll damn near be able to walk into anywhere.