Thread: Pumpkin Planting

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So who all has planted their pumpkin seeds????

I just planted mine today. I'm hoping we're free of frost from now on, but you never know. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

i was thinking about trying to grow my own pumpkins this year, any tips for me?

Wow the seeds need to be started already?

Originally Posted by slightlymad

Wow the seeds need to be started already?

Not really. It is a bit early to start them. The seeds won't likely sprout until the ground gets to be pretty warm (in the 70 + degree range). Depending on the type of pumpkin you're growing, the average time from seed to fruit is about 100 days. So, planting now would force you to harvest sometime in early-to-mid-August.

Your best bet if you want to plant this time of year would be to start them indoors. Use a heating pad underneath the container you sow the seeds in to get the soil to be nice and warm. By the time the seeds sprout and have a good amount of growth it'll be warm enough to acclimate them to the outdoors.

Listen to Zombie....this is my first real go at it. I'm crossing my fingers, it's more of an experiment at the moment. I still have about 6 more seeds I could try planting in a month or so. I will probably still buy my pumpkins and save seeds from them when I can hopefully plant them in my own garden, not a make shift one at my parents.

I started early I guess, read on a site to start when there was most likely no more frosts. I don't mind harvesting them in August, it'll put me in a big Halloween mode and I can carve them then and put the out, have a new pumpkin out each week till Halloween would be cool.

It's still early, most people say start them in May.

With that said, a lot of the competition growers like to start REALLY early, so their plants have as much time to grow as possible. But they also like to do things like germinating beore planting, messing with mini-green houses for an early start, shade shelters to make sure the pumpkin doesn't harden too soon...

Hmmm, will this be the year I actually give it a shot? I came close last year, so maybe! How many pumpkins will a pack of seed yield?

i would really REALLY like to try this year also. So would my wife. Any cool tutorial sites? i know last year there were some good threads here going about growing.

One link, although it's aimed at the giant pumpkins, but has lots of generic info, and plans for a germination box, shade structure, and helpful growing hints, is
http://www.mainepumpkins.com/.

Google pumpking growing tips and you'll find half a million sites dedicated to growing them successfully.

I started growing pumpkins 2 years ago, at least trying too. The first year I got leaves, no pumpkins. Last year I did some soil ammending, got 2, small but a improvement. I also did some research, I don't think mine were pollinating, lots of flowers, no pumpkins. I had male amd female flowers, but I don't think I had many bees, which are needed for pollination. You can do the pollinating by hand with a small brush, but seeing as I work mornings, when you are supposed to pollinate, it never worked. I have been researching and have found a herb that draws bees, and am planting it near my pumpkins, and have a new watering system in place(they need lots of water) hopefully I will have better luck this year. I also am going to try the white pumpkin, Lumina. They would make a cool carved mummy type JOL.Any one tried them yet? Any hints? I don't plan on planting my seed until after memorial day, the soil here is too cool for them until then. But I am anxious to get started!