How to Grow Pumpkins

Learning how to grow pumpkins is really easy.  Pumpkin, like zucchini, is a great plant to use for a children's garden because of how reliable it is, how long it grows, and the exciting production of a pumpkin at the end of the season!

I'm going to tell you the truth....I have tried to grow beautiful, long trellises of green vines with luscious, large, vibrant green leaves soaking up the sun, to inevitably produce a fantastic pumpkin at the end of the season! I have always produced a pumpkin....(sometimes, the nighttime critters have eaten them before I could harvest them) I have NOT always had the luscious green vine I wanted.... and the plants I neglected or abused turned out WAY better than any plant I babied and nurtured throughout the season. So I'm going to share my secrets with you fine people on how to grow pumpkins, in the hopes that you too will be able to abuse and neglect your pumpkin plants and have wicked success with them!

How to grow pumpkins - seed or plant?

I'm going to save you money on this one....grow them from seed. Sow them right in the garden once all danger of frost has past, and they will grow.
Or sow them directly in a container once all danger of frost has past, and they will grow. Seriously, don't spend a lot of time on this one.  You'll read all sorts of information about how you should plant them in rows, with mounded hills, in sets of 4, blah blah blah.... Just get them in the ground...they'll grow.
The only time I had an issue with this was during a particularly harsh and cold spring.  Otherwise, the pumpkins have always done just fine. 

Sometimes the pie pumpkins can be a bit more fragile, but the carving pumpkins seem to hold up pretty well. If you want to teach your child how to grow pumpkins, you could certainly start them indoors in early spring, watch the seedling grow, and then plant outside after the last frost date. These guys are fairly hardy, so they should survive the transplant just fine.   Here are my pumpkins when they were just babies....aren't they cute?!?!  They just grow up so fast, don't they?

If you've never worked with pumpkins before, or you're growing them with your child, be aware of the sharp stems and leaves of this plant!  Just like zucchini, it's best to use gloves when working with it.  

How to grow pumpkins - container, garden or compost pile?

Pumpkin is actually quite versatile and can be grown in the garden, in containers, or in a pile of decomposing yard waste!

Garden:  This is the typical manner in which many people grow their pumpkins.  While this plant starts out deceptively small, the vines will trail to over 10 feet long!  

Be sure to give this vine plenty of room to grow.

It can also be a bit aggressive, and may overpower some smaller plants, so be careful what you plant next to pumpkin.

Container:  I tried this option for the first time this year, and actually kind of like it!  I was able to place the pots in an empty raised bed that I had, and the vines will be able to trail around the bed at their leisure.

I was ALSO able to control the soil that I added to the containers.  In 2 of the containers I placed potting soil, compost and peat moss.  In 1 of the containers, I placed 2 buckets of kitchen scraps on the bottom of the pot, and then the soil mixture on top of that.

That pot has open holes on the bottom of it, and it is sitting in the soil.  I would not have added kitchen scraps to an enclosed container.

This is the pumpkin plant I have growing in the pot with the kitchen scraps (pay no attention to the weeds creeping up from below.)  It's doing fairly well minus the yellow leaves.  I'm not sure why I always struggle with this, but it usually doesn't affect the outcome so I don't let it get me down!

Yellow leaves can be a problem of not enough water or insufficient nitrogen. 

Pumpkins are hungry little buggers and need lots of compost to function at their best....which leads me to my final and best suggestion...

Compost pile: I have a few pumpkins growing out of my compost pile.  They are 'volunteers', meaning I did not purposely plant them, they are growing from seeds left in the pile last year (I believe I threw an old, rotting pumpkin out there.)

Anywho....I was very proud of these pumpkins...VERY proud indeed!  And I couldn't wait to see what they did!

Then one fine day, my lovely husband to be, whacked them off with the weed whacker thinking they were weeds.

Needless to say, we had a few words.

But then, a couple of weeks later, they came back, and they came back better than ever.

Here are those same plants.  And this picture was taken the same day as the above picture of pumpkins in the container was taken. 

The plants above were planted from seed, and sprouted about the same time as the ones below (the ones below suffering catastrophe at the hands of a man with a weed whacker...)

Seriously people!  Seriously!  Look at how fabulously they are doing!

This goes directly to the plant's need for water and nitrogen.  The roots on this pumpkin plant are even deeper than the roots in the containers, and this pumpkin is getting boatloads of nitrogen in that yummy compost pile!

I'm going to add some worm compost and other homemade compost in the container plants and see if there's any improvement. 

Will keep you posted!

How to grow pumpkins - final thoughts?

If you haven't grown pumpkins before, like any type of gardening, I recommend just throwing your hat into the ring.

The seeds, and even the baby plants, are relatively inexpensive at your local nursery, and they are just a fun plant to play with.

Be sure to be at least partially mindful of 'companion plants' in the garden.  Companion planting means that certain plants are grown with others that they are compatible with.  You don't want to plant 2 different varieties of plants together that will hurt each other, or attract the same pests thereby increasing the possibility of problems in the garden.  Refer to this companion planting chart for more info.

The one thing I will add is that pumpkins, like zucchini leaves, can be prone to a breakout of powdery mildew, and this disease can quickly take over your garden.

Try spraying worm tea on the leaves to decrease the incidence of this annoying disease and be sure to practice good plant care such as keeping the leaves as dry as possible (water from below), mulch plants lightly, clean up fallen debris, and remove any infested leaves or stems.

I hope these instructions on how to grow pumpkins have you carving one or two this fall!

If I remember....I'll post my homemade pumpkin pie recipe here for all of you to try.  It's pretty darn good!  :)