By Tim Moran
Villager Editor
Gina Sojka and Matt Nash have become good friends over the past few years. All of their kids go to the same school, and both are relatively new residents of 107th Place in the blocks just east of Western Avenue. Sojka moved into the 2300 block in 2021, and Nash into a home a couple blocks east in the 2100 block in 2024.
Their homes are easily recognizable this time of year. Rather than a gigantic tree or just plain grass, they both have full-on pumpkin patches growing on their parkways.
“It was totally accidental at first,” said Sojka, who decorated her family’s front yard with a ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ theme during their first Christmas season in the neighborhood.
A few weeks post-Christmas, her kids were home from school for a snow day and asked their mom if they could smash the pumpkins out of boredom.
“I thought, why not? So, they smashed them up in the snow,” Sojka said. “Then spring came and these pumpkins came up. It was wild.”
Sojka’s had the pumpkin patch in the four years since they started growing on their own. She plants a few every year, and says the patch has grown larger each time. It now takes up the entire parkway.
Nash, an avid gardener himself, began to take notice.
“I saw the pumpkins last year and thought it was really cool,” he said. “She gave me some pumpkin seeds. I put them in the ground in April, and they grew from those little seeds.”
Sojka admits she “kind of talked him into it.”
“We both do a lot of gardening, and he said he had this whole empty space. I said pumpkins. He didn’t even hesitate.”
Nash’s has harvested seven pumpkins and has a few more on the vine in his inaugural crop this year, as of late September. The more experienced Sojka says her average is about 15 per year, comparing the finding and counting of them to “an Easter egg hunt” since every so often a pumpkin can be hidden behind the larger leaves.
“His did start growing first this year,” Sojka said, sharing that the two families comparing crops has turned into a “Crescent East vs. Crescent West” type of rivalry, as the two live on opposite sides of Crescent Park. Future competitions between the two could be who can grow the largest pumpkin, or who can create the most unique pumpkin shape by using a serving dish as a gardening tool.
“I’m really happy with this. It’s been a lot of fun,” Nash said. “I’ll definitely do it again.”
