A Cozy Creative Life

How a little fall tradition took root in my garden

For as long as I can remember, a concrete cat stood in the front yard of my parents’ home. My mother kept her surrounded by flowers and shrubs, and every fall, the cat held a small pumpkin in her basket.

I don’t know how or why my mother started doing it. It was simply one of those little things that appeared with the changing of the seasons. When fall arrived, so did the pumpkin.

When my parents eventually moved from their home, the cat came to live with me. That was when I discovered just how heavy she was. I still remember the movers telling me that wherever they put her, she was staying.

So I chose a spot in the garden off my patio, surrounded by flowers and shrubs, much as she had been at my mother’s house.

And when fall came, I put a little pumpkin in her basket.

I suppose I did it because that was where a pumpkin belonged.

That first year, however, I forgot to remove it. The pumpkin stayed outside all winter. When spring finally arrived, I found what was left of it and threw it away.

I thought that was the end of it.

A while later, something began growing in the flower bed.

I had no idea what it was, but it didn’t look like a weed, so I decided to leave it alone. Before long, yellow flowers appeared, and I realized what had happened.

My forgotten pumpkin had left behind a few seeds.

Soon that little plant wasn’t so little anymore. The vine grew through the flower bed and eventually made its way right out into the lawn. Fortunately, the gentleman who mows my grass knew exactly what it was. Instead of mowing it down, he carefully worked around it. Each week, he was as eager as I was to see how much it had grown and whether any pumpkins had appeared.

Eventually, they did.

I don’t remember how many pumpkins I grew that first year. What I do remember is deciding that I wanted to do it again.

And so I have.

Each year I grow pumpkins in the garden where my mother’s concrete cat now stands. Some years are more successful than others. Last year, I grew nine.

It makes me smile when I think about how it all happened.

My mother started a simple fall tradition many years ago by placing one small pumpkin in the basket of a concrete garden cat. When the cat came to live with me, I continued the tradition because it was something I remembered her doing.

But then I forgot one little pumpkin.

It stayed through the winter, dropped its seeds into my garden, and quietly turned my mother’s tradition into one of my own.

Some traditions are carefully passed down from one generation to the next. Others simply take root.