Poppy Plants a Pumpkin Patch

A gentle garden story about patience, watching and caring for something every day.

Poppy had a small garden spade, a big straw hat, and one fat pumpkin seed. She dug a little hole in the corner of the garden, dropped the seed in, and covered it with soil.

“Now it will grow,” she said. She sat and watched the soil. Nothing happened. She watched some more. Still nothing happened.

Poppy’s grandmother came out with a watering can. “A seed takes time,” she said. “It needs water and sunshine, and a little patience, too.”

So every morning, Poppy gave the seed a drink. Every afternoon, she checked the soil. One cloudy Tuesday, she saw something poke through. It was a tiny green curl, no bigger than her fingernail.

“It is growing!” cried Poppy. She did a little dance. The curl turned into two round leaves, and then four. A long vine began to stretch across the garden like a green rope.

Yellow flowers opened, as bright as little trumpets. Bees buzzed in and out, tickling each flower with their furry legs. Poppy watched them and whispered, “Thank you, bees.”

Weeks passed. One golden morning, Poppy found a small green ball under the leaves. It was a pumpkin! Every week, it grew rounder and turned a deeper orange.

At last, the pumpkin was as big as Poppy’s head. She and her grandmother carried it into the kitchen together. “We grew this,” said Poppy proudly.

That evening, they made a warm pumpkin soup and saved the seeds for spring. Poppy tucked them into a little paper bag and wrote on the front: “Poppy’s next patch.”

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