How to Grow Pumpkins

Hi, I'm Tricia, an organic gardener. I grow organically for a healthy and safe food supply, for a clean and sustainable environment, for an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Pumpkins and winter squash are easy and delicious crops to grow in your garden. Come on, I'll show you how. Pumpkins like rich sandy soil that is high in organic matter. I'm working some compost into the soil before I plant to loosen the soil and improve drainage. I'm also adding a good balanced fertilizer to the bed because pumpkins are heavy feeders. Pumpkins grow on very large vines. There are some compact bush pumpkins or semi-bush types, but for the most part expect your pumpkin to take up to 50 to 100 square feet. Plan for 150 square feet if you're growing a giant pumpkin. Like all cucurbits, pumpkins are very frost sensitive. Direct seed them in hills after the last frost and when the soil has warmed up to 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Space your hills three to five feet apart. To speed up the planting time, you can put down some plastic mulch. That will heat up the soil. When they sprout and have two true leaves, thin to two to three plants per hill. Water the pumpkins deeply but infrequently. Drip irrigation is the best and mulch is a great way to conserve water. If you're using an organic mulch, make sure that the soil temperature has heated up to about 75 degrees before you add it because it does have a cooling effect. As your squash grows, be on the lookout for squash bugs. They're a serious pest and can be hard to control when they're adults. Check your pumpkins and squash periodically for eggs, adults, and nymphs. They like to hang around at the base of the stem, at the crown, and if you see any, pick them up and squish them. What will happen is they'll suck the juice out of the plant, they'll leave little yellow spots on the leaves, and then the leaves will wilt and the plant will die. You can put a piece of cardboard down and give them a place to hide and then later on the next day, turn the cardboard over and catch them. If you plan to save open-pollinated seeds, pay attention to squash species. There are four cultivated species that are considered pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash, or gourds. Cucurbita peppa are varieties like zucchini, acorn squash, houden pumpkins, jackbee little pumpkins. Cucurbita maxima are the giant pumpkin varieties like Big Max and Cinderella. Cucurbita muscata are varieties like butternut squash, Dickinson squash, and Musquee de Provence pumpkin. Finally, there is Cucurbita argyrosperma, which is squash like the kasha pumpkin. Most of these species don't cross with each other. You can plant houden, which is peppo, and Cinderella, which is maxima, and they won't cross. But if you plant houden with Musquee de Provence, which is muscata, they will cross. To be sure that you get a true to seed cross pollination, pollinate a flower yourself and then bag it. Do your pollinating early in the morning just as the flowers open and before the bees are out. Cut a male flower and then cut all the petals off and then take the stamen and swirl it around into a female flower and then bag the female flower. So no other pollinators will get in. The female flowers have a fat base and they appear later than the male flowers and towards the end of the vines. Pumpkins are ripe when the rinds are hard and when they're fully colored, whether that's white, blue, or orange. Cut the pumpkins from the vine before the first frost. Make sure you leave a three to four inch handle. Pumpkins without handles or rinds with wounds won't keep as well. If that happens, make sure and eat that pumpkin first. To extend storage life, cure pumpkins in a sunny spot for ten days. Ideally the temperature should be between 80 and 85 degrees and shouldn't go below 60 degrees at night. A greenhouse or a south-facing window are ideal spots for curing pumpkins. Don't harvest your pumpkins wet and don't leave them in the field to get wet. They need to be stored in a dry area at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. So grow your own pumpkins to make the best pumpkin pie and grow organic for life!