JAY – Darcie Daoust’s portable pumpkin patch is much bigger than she is – the garden she planted in her father’s pickup is growing fast. The long green vines, ever-larger leaves and yellow flowers in the bed of the truck look quite healthy.

When the 8-year-old wanted to grow her own pumpkins this year, she had a problem.

“I was saying, Gee, I don’t know where to put it,'” the third-grader recalls. “Dad was saying, Put it in the back of the GMC.’ I said, You really mean it?'”

Her father, Conrad Daoust, did indeed. He’d suggested the bed of his 1988 General Motors Co. pickup truck so it could be moved around in the sunshine and be watered. But that was before the patch blossomed.

Now it’s pushed the family’s vehicles to another spot as the plants continue to branch out of the truck into the driveway.

Before Darcie planted, her father picked up some loam and went to the Turner Farm for some cow manure.

Darcie, whose dad has called her “Pumpkin” since she was a baby, planted seeds to grow 100-pound pumpkins in mid-June.

“I started watering with a big squirt gun,” she said. The pump-action gun was quite useful, since the garden wasn’t easy for her to reach. Now she stands on the family’s deck and uses a hose to saturate the plants when it hasn’t rained recently.

Darcie’s sister, Julie Fitch, had put in a squash and some watermelon seeds, but the pumpkins have overtaken them.

“I did not expect this to be so big,” Darcie said.

In just three days, Daoust said, his daughter’s pumpkins grew 3 feet.

“I like gardening because it’s fun to do, and you don’t have to watch (television) all day long,” she said. “It’s fun to have pumpkins and squash to eat and flowers to look at. It’s mostly my favorite thing to do. But my favorite thing is swimming.”