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**Pumpkin Facts**
If you’re growing pumpkins, you’ll pretty much be following the same guidelines as you’d follow for winter squash.

**The most ancient evidence of growing pumpkins dates back to around 7000 B.C. in Mexico.**

Farmers in the U.S. are currently growing pumpkins at around 1.5 billion pounds per year; gardeners add many more to that.

One of the favorite usages of pumpkins is for the Halloween “holiday” when much of the populace carves goofy faces in their pumpkins and put candles in them. If you really want to know why, Google it.

**When to Plant Pumpkins**
You’ll need about 80 to 120 frost free days when growing pumpkins to allow them to mature.

You can begin growing your pumpkins indoors about 4 weeks before your last frost date. The soil should be about 60° to 65°F at 2 inches depth.

If you use floating row covers, you can transplant pumpkins to your garden a couple weeks before the last anticipated frost.

If you live in warmer areas you can plant your pumpkin seeds directly after the danger of frost is past, typically around the end of March or mid-April.

You’ll want to plan to have your pumpkins mature by late summer or early fall. The larger the pumpkin, the more days they take to mature.

**Where to Plant pumpkins**
Pumpkins require at the very least 6 hours of full sunlight daily.

Growing pumpkins require garden soil that drains well and has plenty of organic materials blended into it.

Your soil ideally should have a pH balance in the range of 5.8 to 7.5; right in the middle of that is the best pH level.

Your soil needs sufficient levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, most of which are achieved with the liberal application of compost and/or composted manure, bone meal, blood meal, and the like.

**Preparing Your Soil to Plant Pumpkins**
Pumpkins need copious amounts of soil nutrients which can be supplied mainly with compost and composted-manure.

The best way to apply your compost is to lay out where your hills will be and mix several inches of compost into about a 2 foot diameter area about a foot deep.

If you’re rototilling rows, add 2 to 4 inches of compost, composted manure, etc., and rototill it to around 8 inches deep.

You can also mound the soil where your plants will be to aid in the mixing in of compost or other organic matter.

Other items you can add to your soil are alfalfa meal early in the season for nitrogen, and feather meal later in the season, ground oyster or egg shells for calcium, greensand for potassium, and kelp meal for trace nutrients.

**Choosing the right Seed Varieties for your Area**
If you have a small garden, it’s good to note that pumpkin vines can occupy up to 100 square feet.

Pumpkins, at least most varieties, are too heavy to trellis, but do grow well in larger garden areas.

Contact your county extension office to find out if there are common diseases in pumpkins in your area. If there are, get recommendations for seed varieties that are resistant to those diseases.

Diseases that afflict pumpkins are covered in detail in the latter part of this post.

**Seeds and Germination**
Pumpkin seeds are usually still plantable 6 years after you’ve purchased them from a reputable seed supplier.

Pumpkin seeds won’t germinate in soil temperatures lower than 60°F or higher than 105°F. The optimum germination temp is between 86°F to 95°F.

The seedlings should emerge in about 5 days at the optimum temperature range if they are in full sunlight or under grow lights (fluorescent lights are OK).

If you’re seeding directly to your soil, you can use a black plastic mulch to heat up your soil. Secure your plastic with soil (make sure all edges are covered with dirt), and cut holes for seeds.

Your garden soil temperature shouldn’t be no lower than 60°F to 65°F to germinate your pumpkin seeds.

**Starting Pumpkin Plants Indoors**
Plant your pumpkin seeds in peat pots or soil blocks 3 or 4 weeks before the last frost. You can use tapered plastic pots as well, but peat pots and/or soil blocks are better options.

Use a good potting mix or starter mix to start your pumpkin seeds in. These mixes are readily available at your local garden center.

If you want to create your own potting soil mix, you can purchase mixing loam soil, sphagnum peat moss, and perlite at your local garden store. Adding compost to this mix will create an optimal starter mix.

Don’t use garden soil as it has lots of weed seed, fungus spores, and bugs in it that aren’t optimal for starting your pumpkins indoors.

If you want to grow a pumpkin plant or more in containers, you’ll need to get at least a 10-gallon pot.

Mix 9 gallons of potting mix, a couple cups of alfalfa meal, half a cup of feathermeal, half a cup of powdered eggshells or oyster shells for calcium, half a cup of greensand for potassium, and a few tablespoons of kelp to cover your trace minerals.

Plant three or four seeds about 1″ deep. Don’t thin until the plants have at least 2 true leaves; leave the 2 best seedlings and after one is about 10 inches tall, choose the best plant and clip the other off with a scissor.

**Transplanting Pumpkins to Your Garden**
Before you actually transplant your pumpkins to your garden, you’ll need to “harden off” your plants.

To harden off your pumpkin seedlings, move them outside during the daytime and cut back on watering.

Your plants should have 2 or more true leaves at this stage and it will have been 3 to 4 weeks since you originally planted them.

As pumpkins prefer warm temperatures, ideally, the daytime temps will reach 75° to 85°F daytime and 60° to 65°F nighttime temperatures.

However, if you live as far North as we do, you may not hit those temperatures until 2-4 weeks after transplanting, so it might be advisable to use row covers and black plastic ground cover to help your pumpkins to get a good start.

You need a minimum soil temp of 60°F to plant your squash, so plant them in an area that gets lots of sun.

If you’re planting in rows, space the rows 4 to 6 feet apart and the plants about 2 to 3 feet apart in the rows. If you have a larger variety of pumpkin, you might want to plant them 3 to 4 feet apart in the rows.

When you plant your pumpkin seedlings, dig a hole large enough to place the peat pot, soil block, or soil mass into; then pack soil in around the plant.

Make sure the soil is moist but not too wet; you shouldn’t be able to pack a tight dirt clump with your hand or it’s too wet.

Plastic mulch, set down a couple of weeks prior to your anticipated transplant date, is a definite help (how much of a help depends in good part on what kind of plastic mulch you use–the traditional black is the least helpful).

**Planting Pumpkin Seeds Directly to Your Garden**
Once your soil temps have stabilized above 60°F, you can plant pumpkin seeds in your garden. You should make sure that you’re past the danger of frost.

If you’re hilling your pumpkin area, make your mounds about 4 to 8 feet apart and plant 4 to 6 seeds about one inch deep and about 1 inch apart in a circle or square configuration.

If you’re planting in rows, the rows should be 4 to 8 feet apart, and the seeds should be planted 6 to 12 inches apart.

Once the seeds have germinated, you can thin your plants to one every 18 to 36 inches, depending on whether they’re larger or smaller pumpkin varieties, and what your garden soil can handle.

**Getting the Most Out of Your Pumpkins**
Once your plants have at least 2 true leaves, thin them to 2 or 3 plants per hill, or 18 to 36 inches apart if they’re in rows.

Pumpkins have male and female flowers. Male flower will appear first, 40 to 50 days after germination. A week later female flowers will begin to emerge.

If you have plenty of insects, pollination should be no problem.

If you have too few insects, you’ll see the female flowers begin to drop. To avoid this, you can hand pollinate by using a cotton swab or a small brush to take pollen from the male flowers and dispense it to the female flowers.

Early in the season, make sure the pumpkin plants aren’t…
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Ihab Salloum