Pardon the Garden, Pass the Pumpkin: Anna Quindlen’s Humble Harvest Humor

July 12, 1953

Dearest garden reader,

On this day, we celebrate the birth of Anna Quindlen, the gifted American author, journalist, and gardener who once penned a delightfully candid essay titled Pardon the Garden, Pass the Pumpkin.

With humor and honesty, Anna recounts the joys and unexpected challenges of her first vegetable garden, planted in early May when the promise of fresh produce was freshly needed after months without.

She admits, “I got carried away.” For those few scattered plants—four tomato plants, one pumpkin vine, a single spray of zucchini and basil—seemed too little at first, much like young children who soon grow to fill the house and the dinner table.

Anna’s garden quickly became a burgeoning bounty, where zucchini grew to the size of clubs, best suited not for the kitchen but as an improvised nighttime deterrent against intruders. Pumpkin plants, too, took her by surprise. She imagined a few festive pumpkins for autumn, but not the mountain of orange that would follow—the very sight prompting whispered neighborly remarks of, “They’ve brought pumpkins again, Judith.”

As the harvest rushed all at once—over a thousand tomatoes ripening in a week, pumpkins turning bright orange, zucchini disappearing—Anna discovered the true problem of the generous gardener: how to share the abundance when your neighbors face the same bounty.

A sign appeared at the end of a driveway stating,

“Don’t even THINK of leaving produce here.”

With wry affection, Anna reflects on the mythos of Thanksgiving, joking that the Pilgrims didn’t invent the holiday solely to share their harvest with Indigenous peoples, but perhaps to give away pumpkins, green tomatoes, and gigantic zucchini alike.

Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed by nature’s generosity?

How do you celebrate and manage the gifts your garden offers without drowning in their abundance?

What garden stories make you smile, groan, or shake your head in shared understanding?

Anna Quindlen’s tale reminds us that gardening is, at heart, full of surprises—bountiful, messy, and endlessly rewarding. May your own harvests, whether small or mountain-high, bring laughter, community, and humble gratitude to your table.

Explore more of Anna Quindlen’s rich writings here: (books by this author).

Here's a longer excerpt from Pardon the Garden, Pass the Pumpkin from October 1988:

I planted a vegetable garden. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The time was early May, and I hadn't had a really good vegetable in months.

I got carried away.

Vegetables look pathetic when th ey are small, just like children. Four tomato plants, one pumpkin vine, single spray of zucchini or basil just don't seem like enough.

Then they grow. (This is why some people have several children. When they are small they don't seem like so many. Then they grow, and pretty soon they are six feet tall and snacking on four fried eggs and a loaf of toast just before bed, and you know you overestimated the demand.)

One morning you go into the garden and the zucchini are the size of clubs. There's nothing you can do with zucchini like that except keep them next to the bed in case you hear noises downstairs in the middle of the night.

You can creep down the steps with one of those things and the right sort of burglar, the kind who knows his greens, will take one look at it, yell, "No! Not the zucchini!" and take off.

This was my first year with pumpkins. I thought it would be fun to have a few in October, when the zucchini plants would be yellowed, the tomatoes past their prime. I never really thought about how large they would become, and how dumb a person would look bringing one to a dinner party in lieu of a chardonnay, while friends peeked from behind the blinds and whispered, "They've brought pumpkins again, Judith."

Of course the denouement was predictable.

Everything ripened at the same time. In one week, 1,212 tomatoes turned red, all the pumpkins turned orange and the zucchini disappeared.

Oh, they didn't die; left them in mailboxes up and down the road.

Naturally, I tried to give away some of the tomatoes, too, but it didn't work; everyone else has the same problem.

At the end of one driveway is a sign that says "Don't even THINK of leaving produce here."

It occurs to me that as a child I was lied to when all the grown-ups told that grand story about how the Pilgrims invented Thanksgiving to share the largesse of their harvest with the Indians.

The Pilgrims invented Thanksgiving to give away pumpkins, and probably green tomatoes and enormous zucchini, too.