Pumpkintown

The Lowcountry may not have the sudden snap in the air that heralds the arrival of autumn, but a sure sign of the changing season is the proliferation of pumpkin patches. These iconic squashes were being cultivated centuries ago by Native Americans as an important diet staple, particularly by Cherokee in the Upstate, who shared them with European settlers in and around today's Pickens County. They grew so prolifically there along the Oolenoy River that (so the story goes) an early 19th-century settler named the

new town in the pumpkin's honor, making the autumn Pumpkintown's time in the botanical spotlight.

Sidi In The Pumpkin Patch (courtesy Charleston Magazine)

Pumpkins fell out of favor for a time in the Lowcountry, though, as soil depleted by cotton plantations made them harder to grow. By the early twentieth century, when truck farming became more common, the pumpkin began a slow return to Lowcountry fields; and by the latter half of the century, our own Sidi Limehouse staged somewhat of a pumpkin renaissance. "I saw the need to have a decent edible pumpkin," he once told the Johns Island Conservancy. "You can go to most places and they have pumpkin pie and it's out of a damn can, and it ain't pumpkin, it's just squash with with sugar in it." Limehouse worked with Clemson's agricultural station to develop a pumpkin suited to the Lowcountry's sandy, slightly salty soil, literally laying the ground for the proliferation of pumpkin patches that are now a common feature of our coastal autumn.

Pumpkins may all look pretty similar, but there are a number of varieties promoted by pumpkin aficionados. There are Mammoth Golds, Ghost Riders, Howdens and Small Sugars; but all have woody stems, stringy flesh, and seeds that can be cleaned, dried and roasted. Pumpkins are a great source of Vitamin A, and the seeds are a good source of protein and fat.

At the pumpkin patch, look for pumpkins that are uniformly firm and free of cracks or splits. If a gently pressed fingernail easily penetrates the skin, it's a sign the pumpkin was harvested too early. And if you're picking your own, look for ones with bright green stems, and when cutting from the plant, leave at least an inch of the stem. Most of all, enjoy this heritage vegetable, at the center of generations of Lowcountry harvest feasts.

Howls From The Marsh

Among the more striking members of our island's wildlife population is a relative newcomer, the coyote. SIPOA's wildlife map shows increasing coyote sightings along the western and southern marshes of the island starting in 2020, and some residents are familiar, on a cool winter's night, with the eerie howls of these top predators.

Once confined to western and Plains states, coyotes are now present throughout the United States, first reported in the 1970's in upstate South Carolina, where they had been imported to be hunted by hounds in rural Pickens and Oconee counties during competitive, and illegal, night hunts. (The state's DNR is quick to insist that the animals were never imported by the state to control deer populations.) Coyotes are now established throughout the state and, in the Lowcountry, are frequently seen on beaches and in marshes where they prey on crabs, rabbits, deer fawns, birds and, as our island's turtle patrol reports more frequently during nesting season, on turtle eggs.

Sometimes mistaken for foxes, these intelligent canids typically stand about two feet tall, with a narrow muzzle, pointed ears, and grayish to reddish-gray fur. They form breeding pairs early each year, mating during the winter and producing three or four pups which both parents tend and feed until the cubs are weaned in the spring. The cubs are reared in dens fashioned out of reeds and brush (which is why the animals are so frequently seen around marshes), or will take over another animal's abandoned nest hole. Once the cubs reach adulthood, the group disperses to hunt in packs. Coyotes are capable of mating with domestic dogs, but that's a rare occurrence and the offspring generally don't survive into adulthood.

Although they generally avoid human contact, coyotes can attack domestic pets left unguarded outdoors. Hunting coyotes is allowed throughout the state year-round with a valid license, but most of the victims are "incidental kill" associated with deer hunting or nuisance animals removed by contract hunting. As with all our island's wildlife, it's best to admire these resourceful animals from a distance.

A Lowcountry Fall

The autumn equinox arrives this year on September 23rd (at 2:50am, to be exact), when the sun crosses the ' equator on its way south. Of course, that's our earth-centric view of what is really the seasonal northward tilt of the earth, shifting the northern hemisphere away from an immobile sun until the winter solstice in December, when the process reverses and carries us toward another spring and summer.

While those in other parts of the country may enjoy a more colorfully spectacular autumn, our shift is more subtle. Salt marshes change from summer green to gold as the spartina grass dies back, and the cordgrass loses its flowering parts and drops its seeds for the benefit of migrating birds, who depend on it for a food source. At the beach, migrating shore birds like pipits and plovers forage in the pluff mud to refuel before resuming their journey south. Cooling waters bring the start of oyster season, as the warm-water fueled reproductive season comes to an end and harvesting can begin (with the blessing of the state's DNR). Those cooling waters also bring a welcome end to the traditional hurricane season, as storms are deprived of the warm ocean that gives them energy. (Although climate change and a more continuously warm Atlantic can now bring storms as early as the spring and as late as the winter.)

It's a season of change, however gentle that change may be in the Lowcountry, and traditionally a time to pause, rest, re-evaluate. It was a time of great ritual significance for ancient peoples who built monuments like Stonehenge or the mounds of the American Midwest to mark and observe the changing of the seasons. For the Gullah Geechee, with the Lowcountry's more gentle seasonal shift, it's a time for harvest feasts and traditional crafts like basket-weaving during the cooler winter months to come. For others, it was a time of myth-making to explain the fiery change in the trees, at least for more northern First Peoples. The Wyandots, one of the Great Lakes tribes, said the change was because of the blood of the Great Bear, wounded in a celestial fight with the Great Deer, which falls to earth each year and covers the trees in brilliant red, orange and yellow.