Place the seed horizontal, not vertical, in a pot with soil mixture that is slighty damp, not wet. If you squeeze a fist of soil mixture and water comes out, it’s too wet. If you have the proper light on it, it will stop growing up and start growing out. You want the cotyledons from the seed to remain parallel to the soil, about 1/4 inch above it.
Germination and Early Seedling Stages
Germination1Germination2Germination3Germination4First true leaf visible in the middleGermination5Time for a bigger pot!
Pumpkin seedlings can become leggy if light is insufficient. LeggyseedlingLeggy seedlings. Not enough light. The only thing I love more than our annual trip to the pumpkin patch each fall is being able to harvest our own pumpkins right in our garden.
Pumpkins require a long growing season, typically needing about 75-100 frost-free growing days. The seed packet should tell you the approximate days to maturity of specific pumpkin varieties. Direct sow pumpkin seeds 1 inch deep, and for best germination, plant 3 or 4 seeds per mound and thin them out to the strongest plant as they begin to grow.
Varieties and Space Considerations
Sugar pie pumpkins, French heirlooms, Jack-o’-lanterns… And then there are the winter squash varieties like butternut squash, spaghetti squash, acorn and delicata. Because pumpkins do require plenty of space to grow, they’re probably not the best candidate for a small space or container garden on your balcony. However they can be trained up a trellis and grown vertically if you’re short on space.
If you’re looking for a good pumpkin for making pumpkin pie, sugar pumpkins (aka. If, however, you’re looking for a good carving pumpkin with bright orange flesh, you’ll want to opt for a larger variety like a Jack-o’-lantern. If you want something a little different, there are some really cool heirloom varieties that are as visually stunning as they are delicious. Some that I recommend include the French Rouge Vif d’Etampes (aka.
Seeds, Sowing, and Seed Quality
It’s a good idea to always start with organic seeds from a reputable source. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, I like to get almost all of my seeds from West Coast Seeds. But there are lots of great seed companies out there, and I always recommend going local when possible, especially when it comes to seeds because they’ll be better acclimated to your growing area. Check out your local farmer’s market or garden store for a good local seed company in your area. I wouldn’t, however, bother trying to save seeds from pumpkins you bought at the grocery store or got at the pumpkin patch. While those seeds are perfectly fine for roasting and eating, different pumpkin and quash varieties are notorious for cross-pollinating with each other.
The plant that grows from one of those seeds likely won’t turn out to be quite what you’d expect it to be, but rather a mish-mash between two different varieties of parent plants. Case in point, we had a volunteer pumpkin grow in our garden a few years back from a seed that had been in our compost. Moral of the story: start with good quality seeds. If direct sowing, plant seeds 1 inch deep.
Direct Sowing and Transplanting
Most of the time, the best way to sow pumpkin seeds is to plant them directly into your garden so as not to disturb their roots when transplanting. Direct sow pumpkin seeds 1 inch deep. To ensure good germination rates, plant 3 or 4 seeds per mound and thin them out to the strongest plant as they begin to grow.
When transplanting, you want to keep your seedling in a pot until at least the first true leaf has appeared, which will be the 3rd leaf on the plant. Keeping a seedling in a pot for too long can lead to the roots being bound. If transplanting isn’t an option you may need to move the seedling to a larger pot until the time is right.
Care: Watering, Pruning, and Training
Pumpkins require lots of water but they don’t like to get their leaves wet. Water plants deeply right at the soil line once a week and keep the soil damp, but try to avoid watering from overhead in order to keep the leaves dry. Mulch around the pumpkin plants to help keep the soil moist and keep weeds from growing. Pumpkins are also heavy feeders, and require very fertile soil. As pumpkins grow, rotate them very gently to encourage even colour and roundedness. You can also prune vines in order to direct more energy into the fruits or if you’re short on space. Another option for small spaces is to train pumpkin vines up a trellis. Finally, be sure to attract pollinators to your garden to ensure the pumpkin flowers get pollinated and produce fruit!
Cut pumpkins off the vine with a sharp knife or pruners. Cure pumpkins off the vine in the sun for a week or two to harden up the skins. Wait until pumpkins are fully mature before harvesting. If you harvest pumpkins too early and they’re still green and developing, they won’t be good to eat and they won’t continue to ripen off the vine like some fruits do, so be patient. At the same time, don’t wait too long to harvest them in the fall. Harvest mature fruit during dry weather. Cut pumpkins off the vine with a sharp knife or pruners. Do not rip or tear them off as this can leave jagged ends on the stem that invite disease that could rot your pumpkin.
Harvesting, Curing, and Storage
If the weather turns or you can’t cure them outside for any reason, you can cure them inside. Try to cure them in a warm, sunny place indoors, like near a sunny window. Store in a cool place if you don’t have a root cellar. However, they can be a bit finicky to cut up and prepare.
Additional Tips and Resources
However, they can be a bit finicky to cut up and prepare. P.P.S. If you need a little extra help planning your garden, Seedtime is a fantastic all-in-one garden planner and management app that I have personally used and loved. It can help you with timing, spacing, companion planting, and so much more. Let’s face it: food costs are skyrocketing and only continuing to go up. Growing your own food is basically like printing your own money! Not to mention how much healthier and better-tasting it is.
But if you’re new to gardening, it can feel intimidating to get started. Over the past 10+ years, I’ve learned how to feed my family from our backyard (well… front yard, actually!) on our modest quarter-acre property. Today, I grow hundreds of pounds of food for our family every year for practically free. Yes, there are some startup costs-but they pay big dividends for years to come. Inside the course, I’ll teach you step-by-step exactly how to grow your own food from seed and create your very own organic grocery store right in your backyard.
Do you have any leftover little pumpkins from Halloween? Then I’ve got a great project for you and your future botanist! I quickly learned though, there is a right way and wrong way to do this. The seeds in a cup did MUCH better than our seeds sitting in a rotting pumpkin. We dissected it for good measure and quickly chunked it. Then a good friend of mine showed me a picture of her daughter’s “pumpkin in a pumpkin” for a Daisy Troop project and it was flourishing!
We found another pumpkin but this time we scooped out the seeds first, washed them off, and put the seeds back into the pumpkin with soil. That made all the difference. (And I didn’t voraciously water it). Four days later the seeds started sprouting! It’s been so much fun talking about how seeds turn into plants and the right and wrong way to grow a pumpkin. Mold (which is a fungi) helps break down plants into smaller parts into the soil. We will eventually put the entire pumpkin into our garden and see how it goes. Post update 6 months later: Here is our pumpkin-in-a-pumpkin the next spring 6 months later. What an amazing project for the kids to watch how a seed grows above ground and then how it just sprung to life in the ground!
You want your seed to germinate and get growing as fast as possible. You might want to plant your seeds directly out into the pumpkin patch. Outside soil might have microscopic pathogens that could cause harm to your seed. Your plant might grow in the wrong direction. This can cause problems as you will have to train the vine early to go in the right direction. These are the items I use to start my giant pumpkin seedlings. Many growers will soak their seeds in warm water from anywhere from 1 to 6 hours after they have filed the edges and before putting it in the zip lock bag. They may also add to the water some form of fertiliser, Humis or Fish/Seaweed, or a mixture of other products. Fold the paper towel in half and half again, place the paper towel into the glass of warm water. Carefully unfold the paper towel once and place it in the middle and fold back up. Placing this bag in an area that has some constant warmth helps with germination. An ideal location is on top of a hot water cylinder. More experienced growers of giant pumpkins will be using heat mats to achieve this. Make sure to have back ups ready to go. I like to space these out 3 - 5 days after starting the original seeds. Having back ups means you won’t lose days if your first seeds don’t germinate. When they have germinated you will notice they have swollen up a little, and the pointed end has popped open with a small root visible.
You want to keep your seedling in the pot until at least the first true leaf has appeared. This will be the 3rd leaf on the plant. Keeping a seedling in a pot for too long can lead to the roots being bound. If transplanting isn’t an option you may need to move the seedling to a larger pot until the time is right.
