About Pumpkin

Pumpkins are fantastic to grow in the garden. They can take up quite a bit of space with their massive leaves. Why not try growing pumpkins with the children and see who can actually grow the biggest one. If you want to grow smaller varieties of pumpkins you can actually grow them upwards on arches and pergolas. This is so that the pumpkins hang down when they are growing. Find out how to grow pumpkin right here.

Recommended varieties of Pumpkin

Their are many varieties of pumpkins that you can try growing. Here are some of our favorite varieties to try growing:-

• Mammoth
• Atlantic Giant
• Becky

Where to grow Pumpkin

When you are choosing your area to plant pumpkins these need to be grown in a sunny but sheltered spot. Make sure that you put your pumpkin plants in a fertile moisture retentive soil. You can add compost to the soil to help with this.

How to Sow Pumpkin

Pumpkin seeds are best started indoors in a greenhouse or a house on a window sill where they have the warmth to help germinate the pumpkin seed. Get a pumpkin seed, they are very big so children would be able to help the pumpkin seeds. Place a pumpkin seed in individual plant pots on top of a layer of compost. The pumpkin seeds are best placed on their side. Then cover the seed with another layer of compost.

Starting the pumpkin seed off early in spring gives the pumpkin plants longer to grow and you may just get a gigantic pumpkin growing.

How to Grow Pumpkin

When the pumpkin seed germinates it will create large leaves. These will get bigger as the plant grows. When the plants are big enough to plant outdoors and they have been hardened off for a few weeks so they get used to the weather. The pumpkin plants want planting out just over 1 metre apart.

When you have planted the pumpkin plants outdoors make sure you keep them covered at night if it’s still cold to protect them from the frost and cold.

Pumpkin plants can trail really far so when the plant has around 3 pumpkins on it you can nip the end of the plant off. If you are planning on growing a large pumpkin just leave one pumpkin on the plant so that all the nutrients and water can go to that one pumpkin.

How to care for your Pumpkin plants

Looking after your pumpkin plants is important especially if you want to grow them successfully. To look after your pumpkin plants you need to make sure that the ground is kept moist at all times. Do not water over the plant, make sure you water at the stem. Give them some high potash feed every 14 days – this needs to be in liquid form.

As the pumpkins are growing place some wood underneath them so that they are off the ground. This will protect the pumpkin and also it will help ripen it all.

How to Harvest Pumpkin

You will be harvesting pumpkins from your plants after around 24 weeks. You can over winter your pumpkins but just make sure you pick them before the first frost arrives.

We hope you have found these pumpkin growing tips useful. Find out many more tips on growing fruit and vegetables here . To subscribe to our daily newsletters fill in your details below.