growing pumpkins
- Thread starter roy2636
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Ahhhuummm right now I would plow up where you want to plant them.. then in the spring contact your county agent have the soil tested to see what it needs, then do some YOUTUBE search on planting pumpkins. Watering,, probably a long hose and a by pass on the water meter
i take it i would have to plant the pumpkins by hand? i didn't know it there as a planter you could buy to pull behind a tractor. i have well water
For just half an acre you would probably do better putting the seed in with one of those push by hand wheeled seeders:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/home...eliance/garden-seed-planter-zm0z12jjzsch.aspx
http://www.motherearthnews.com/home...eliance/garden-seed-planter-zm0z12jjzsch.aspx
A neighbor used to have a wooden version of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcCCv1XiUYE
The hills need to be ~3' apart, so a planter intended for rows won't work without modification. Most of the vids on YouTube had the seed bin and plates removed and they had someone dropping the seeds by hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcCCv1XiUYE
The hills need to be ~3' apart, so a planter intended for rows won't work without modification. Most of the vids on YouTube had the seed bin and plates removed and they had someone dropping the seeds by hand.
Good link sheepfarmer,,, I was looking through MEN for something like that,,, And yes you can plant them by hand though a 1/2 acer might get a little tiresome unless you got a bunch of little kids you can bribe into planting them ,,
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However getting your soil tested is the first best step in getting a good crop. Now would be the time to get started for next year.
This little video will give you some good advice ,its in a small garden but you can blow it up as much as you need
https://youtu.be/ik4RDvMD5qM?t=60
OH and if you have kids or grand babies, you can let them pick one out when they start to grow, and take a crayon and have them put their names on it, ( they or you will have to press in to the skin just try not to punch through it) the names will grow with the fruit.
And the main thing it to enjoy the growing. Most pumpkins have about a 100 day growing season, so like planting them in the middle to late June will have them coming on around Halloween.
Have a good time
.However getting your soil tested is the first best step in getting a good crop. Now would be the time to get started for next year.
This little video will give you some good advice ,its in a small garden but you can blow it up as much as you need
https://youtu.be/ik4RDvMD5qM?t=60
OH and if you have kids or grand babies, you can let them pick one out when they start to grow, and take a crayon and have them put their names on it, ( they or you will have to press in to the skin just try not to punch through it) the names will grow with the fruit.
And the main thing it to enjoy the growing. Most pumpkins have about a 100 day growing season, so like planting them in the middle to late June will have them coming on around Halloween.
Have a good time
very nice. looks like hes planting one seed though? i always though you put 3 or 4 seeds in a hole? thats what i did in the garden anyway. i have one row planted and it has taken over more thasn half thae garden
The idea of planting several seeds in a hill was to assure that something germinated. Then after they sprouted you should go through and pull the little ones and leave the large strong ones,,, Me,, if it comes up it stays !!
It should say on the seed package how many seeds should go in a hill. I don't grow pumpkins, but on cucumbers, I plant several seeds and thin the hill down, but I only plant one hill of them. I'd probably rethink things if I was doing it on a larger scale. Going off of memory, a half acre should be about 20000 square feet? If your hills are 3' apart, you're going to have 2000 hills if you waste 10% of your space. You probably could thin 2000 hills, but might rather just plant what you need and just write off the hills that don't come up, or replant them after everything is already up.
in my garden i pruned for a little bit thinking i could keep up. i was wrong. i planted one row and it has taken up more than half of my garden, and my garden is 50x25 feet. goot thing everything else is harvested otherwise the vines would be taking over the plants. this is why im looking at a bigger area for pumpkins
i have live at this house for 2 years now, last year when i didnt plant i had some pumpkins come up in the corner and ket the seed and planted them this year. i bought a package of seeds and planted those as well. NONE of those germinated, but the ones that i kept from later year took off. i planted one long hill, am i suppose to do seperate hills for each seed? i planted one long hill and my pumpkins have taken over half the garden, this is why im looking at a bigger area for pumpkins, and the kids love them and i want to sell a few.
Yeah they will take over,,lol,, A bud had an orchard and one year the kids dumped all their pumpkin guts around a couple of the trees,, Come spring seeds popped up all over and the vines grew up into those couple trees come late summer those trees had small pumpkins hanging from the limbs
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I would get the soil tested now, not in the spring. If it needs lime, get it applied this fall so it has a chance to start working. Waiting till spring to test and apply is to late if you want good results for next summers crop.
i have some good compost, manure and corn stalk, from a year a go that is broken down, im thinking of plowing up some land here soon with my middle buster and spreading some of that out and tilling it in.
what is everyones thoughts on using weed preventor fabric? my thought was to lay it between the rows after i plant, then mulch my hills. they will only be temporary and i will pull them up after growing season to reuse next year. good or bad idea? im getting mixed reviews on the weed fabric.
The weed mat is definitely a mixed bag. I have used it under wood mulch in flower beds and to make walkways in the veggie patch. The downside to using it under the winter squash type vines is that it stops them from developing extra roots where the vines touch the ground, supposedly that helps to defend the plant against some kind of vine borer. I don't know that I've seen that work. I have had plenty of squash bugs, the kind that suck the life out of the leaves, both with weed mat and with straw mulch. Weed mat seems to give cover to burrowing things and mice, not good as I've found when it is close to the house. It does give you a headstart on the weeds though, and helps the muddy boots problem.
I think if I had lots of room like you have, that I'd put the rows/hills plenty far apart so you can till the weeds under until the vines really get going and then they can hold their own.
I think if I had lots of room like you have, that I'd put the rows/hills plenty far apart so you can till the weeds under until the vines really get going and then they can hold their own.
now im thinking about tilling up the area i would use and leave the area btween the rows as grass. would that work?
It might work, it would be an interesting experiment. If you left a strip of grass at least as wide as your mower, and kept it mowed until the vines really got rambunctious.
While I ate lunch today I was watching a program on PBS under the Victory Garden slot where the featured expert had written a book about Weed-less gardening. He set up his garden so there was wood chips between the rows and he never tilled tne growing strip, just added and covered with mulch/compost. He used a drip irrigation system so as not to provide the weeds much water between the rows.
He also pointed out something I didn't know, and that is that manure from animals that have eaten hay grown with long acting herbicides to kill broad leaf weeds in the hayfield can still contain enough of the herbicide to kill or stunt some of the garden plants. It may take a couple of years in the compost pile for that manure not to be toxic! To find out if your manure-containing compost can cause a problem he recommended running a test on some bean seeds in pots with and without the manure before killing your whole veggie patch. He had obviously learned this the hard way. I have never asked my hay supplier what he did, my guess nothing, but his soy beans are sure weed free.
While I ate lunch today I was watching a program on PBS under the Victory Garden slot where the featured expert had written a book about Weed-less gardening. He set up his garden so there was wood chips between the rows and he never tilled tne growing strip, just added and covered with mulch/compost. He used a drip irrigation system so as not to provide the weeds much water between the rows.
He also pointed out something I didn't know, and that is that manure from animals that have eaten hay grown with long acting herbicides to kill broad leaf weeds in the hayfield can still contain enough of the herbicide to kill or stunt some of the garden plants. It may take a couple of years in the compost pile for that manure not to be toxic!
To find out if your manure-containing compost can cause a problem he recommended running a test on some bean seeds in pots with and without the manure before killing your whole veggie patch. He had obviously learned this the hard way. I have never asked my hay supplier what he did, my guess nothing, but his soy beans are sure weed free.Many years ago when I had a young back we had a 1/2 acre kitchen garden and as mentioned above left the between row areas as grass. Mowed it with self propelled walk mower. Grass clippings blew under plants and made good mulch. At end of season rows were covered by composted goat manure.
The composted manure was tilled in late fall. It all worked well.
The composted manure was tilled in late fall. It all worked well.