Pumpkin seeds are an extremely popular and easy plant to grow at home in your own garden however if you have never grown pumpkin plants before you may be wondering do you need to plant them every year. Or are they a perennial plant that keeps on going? Or does the plant self-seed?
Pumpkins are annual plants that do need to be replanted every single year. They require frost-free conditions to survive and generally do not self-seed readily mainly because in most cases the fruits of the plant are usually picked which means seeds are not allowed to be dispersed. So every year you need to replant the seeds every year.
To maximize the speed at which you get the pumpkin crop most gardeners tend to plant the seeds in trays indoors at the start of spring when the weather is still relatively cold. Seedlings are then allowed to develop before being planted out into the garden.
As most pumpkin varieties produce relatively large vines they do require a reasonable amount of space unless you can grow them vertically. But one of the main advantages of growing pumpkins is that they last for an extended period of time if you pick the fruit correctly.
Can You Plant Seeds From Store-Bought Pumpkins?
One of the most common questions that is asked is can you use pumpkin seeds from store-bought pumpkins to grow plants? The answer to this is yes you can scoop out the pumpkin seeds from store-bought pumpkins and plant them. However, it is advisable to wash the seeds to remove any pulp.
The main reason for this is because the pulp contains chemicals that inhabit pumpkins from starting to grow so if you leave the pulp on the seeds will eventually grow but they will be slow to germinate.
The second consideration is that many of the commercial varieties of pumpkins that are grown are produced from hybrid seeds which do not necessarily produce precisely the same fruit when the seeds are replanted because the plants are genetically unstable. So if you want to be 100% sure that you get a particular variety of pumpkin that you want it is best to buy seeds from a garden center.
To ensure that you only have to purchase the seeds once it is best to purchase heirloom or open-pollinated varieties of seeds as they can be collected for the following season easily and subsequent generations will be true to type.
If you need to purchase seeds we recommend that you visit the seed now website which specializes in heirloom varieties seeds and is relatively low cost. To see their range of pumpkin seeds click on the link below.
Visit Seeds Now For A Wide Range Of Low-Cost Seeds
How To Grow Pumpkin
As mentioned earlier in the article pumpkin plants are relatively easy to grow as the seeds will germinate relatively quickly and they can either be planted directly into the garden or into a seed tray. Most gardeners tend to plant pumpkin seeds into seed trays because it allows the seeds to be planted earlier in the season when the weather is still cool.
To do this we recommend that you fill up relatively large seed trays with soil and firm the soil into the individual cells to create solid plugs as this will make it easier for the plants to be transplanted later on.
The seed should be planted at a depth of approximately half an inch to an inch with two seeds per cell to ensure that you get at least one plant germinating per cell. If both plants germinate then it is advisable to remove the weaker seedlings leaving one seed per cell.
Once the seeds have been planted they will typically take approximately 7 to 14 days to appear and the seedlings will get large relatively quickly and most seedlings will be ready to plant out into the garden in 4 to 6 weeks.
Transplanting Pumpkin Seeds Into The Garden
Pumpkin seedlings can be planted into the garden once all risk of frost has passed. When planting them into the garden it is important to select a warm location that gets at least 6 to 8 of hours sun per day and has rich, moist, and free-draining soil with plenty of nutrients as pumpkins are relatively hungry plants.
The pumpkin plants ideally need to be planted approximately 2 to 3 ft apart to provide plenty of space for the vines to spread out, however, initially, it is important to protect the seedlings as they can be highly susceptible to attack from slugs and snails when first put into the garden. As such we recommend that you sprinkle snail bait around the seedlings.
The other important thing to do is to ensure that you apply a layer of mulch that is 2 to 4 inches thick around the seedlings which will help to suppress weeds and retain moisture before watering the plants in.
Once the plants have become established there is very little maintenance required other than ensuring that the plants are watered on a regular basis. However, one of the most common diseases that you often see with pumpkins is powdery mildew which produces a white powder on the leaves usually in mid to late summer.
This is a common problem that generally will not affect your plants too much but it doesn’t look very good so if you want to prevent it is advisable to apply a milk spray every week or two on the foliage which will reduce the extent to which the disease appears.
Harvesting Pumpkins
As a plant develops pumpkins will produce large vines which spread out across the garden followed by flowers and then small green fruit which will progressively get larger. In most cases, the fruit will remain a lime green color as it gets larger before starting to change towards its final color.
As it can be a little bit difficult to tell when pumpkins are completely ripe it is best to simply allow the foliage to die back completely before harvesting the pumpkins as that will make 100% sure that they are ripe.
When harvesting pumpkins it is important to leave around 2 to 3 inches of stem on the fruit when you remove it as that will maximize the shelf life of the pumpkin which is typically up to 12 months provided that it is stored in reasonable conditions.
The reason for that is that the point at which bacteria will get into the pumpkin first is around the top where the stem is. Leaving the stem on protects the pumpkin for an extended period of time.
However, if you accidentally remove the stem then it is important to simply eat that pumpkin first and leave other ones for storage that are in better condition. When storing the pumpkins it is best to place them in a cool dark location that is dry and in these conditions, the pumpkin should last you up to 12 months.
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