I'm Running a Very Unscientific Experiment

I planted pumpkins this year.

Most of them are in an actual pumpkin patch, like a normal person.

A few, however, are growing directly over the fingers of our septic system.

This may be a terrible idea.

I have no intention of eating them. But I do have a hypothesis. Pumpkins are famously hungry plants. They love nitrogen. And while I'm not volunteering to become the next extension office cautionary tale, I suspect those vines might produce some genuinely gorgeous gourds.

So we're going to find out.

Part of getting older, I've realized, is giving yourself permission to run little experiments. Not everything has to become a hobby. Not everything has to become a side hustle. Sometimes you just wonder something. Then you try it.

Maybe the pumpkins over the septic system will be spectacular. Maybe they'll look exactly like the others. Maybe they'll all die and I'll have learned something. I don’t think the roots are strong or deep enough to intertwine with the septic field, but who knows. 

I'll report back this fall.

(For the record: beautiful pumpkins, hopefully. Pumpkin pie, absolutely not.)

Here's the thing I keep noticing, though. The people I admire most are always running some version of this. A different morning routine. A different sales script. A new way to coach Little League. A different AI workflow. A different way to plant pumpkins.

Curiosity compounds. Not every experiment works. But every experiment teaches you something you didn't have before, and most of them cost you nothing but a little patience and a slightly odd-looking yard.

This year's just happens to involve gourds and a septic system.