When should you plant pumpkins for halloween
Growing Pumpkins - Pumpkins and More
Pumpkin is a warm-season vegetable that can be grown throughout much of the United States. Besides being used as jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween, pumpkins are used to make pumpkin butter, pies, custard, bread, cookies and soup.
When to Plant
Pumpkin is a very tender vegetable. The seeds do not germinate in cold soil, and the seedlings are injured by frost. Do not plant until all danger of frost has passed, and the soil has thoroughly warmed. Plant pumpkins for Halloween from late May in northern locations to early July in extremely southern sites. If pumpkins are planted too early, they may soften and rot before Halloween.
Spacing and Depth
Vining pumpkins require a minimum of 50 to 100 square feet per hill. Plant seeds one inch deep (four or five seeds per hill). Allow 5 to 6 feet between hills, spaced in rows 10 to 15 feet apart. When the young plants are well-established, thin each hill to the best two or three plants.
Plant semi-bush varieties one inch deep (four or five seeds per hill) and thin to the best two plants per hill. Allow 4 feet between hills and 8 feet between rows.
Plant miniature varieties one inch deep, with two or three seeds every 2 feet in the row. Rows should be 6 to 8 feet apart, with seedlings thinned to the best plant every 2 feet when they have their first true leaves.
Plant bush varieties one inch deep (1 or 2 seeds per foot of row) and thin to a single plant every 3 feet. Allow 4 to 6 feet between rows.
Care
Pumpkin plants should be kept free from weeds by hoeing and shallow cultivation. Irrigate if an extended dry period occurs in early summer. Pumpkins tolerate short periods of hot, dry weather pretty well.
Bees, that are necessary for pollinating squash and pumpkins, may be killed by insecticides. When insecticides are used, they should be applied only in late afternoon or early evening when the blossoms have closed for the day and bees are no longer visiting the blossoms.
As new blossoms open each day and bees land only inside the open blossoms, these pollinating insects should be safe from contact with any potentially deadly sprays.
Harvesting
Pumpkins can be harvested whenever they are a deep, solid color (orange for most varieties) and the rind is hard. If vines remain healthy, harvest in late September or early October, before heavy frosts. If vines die prematurely from disease or other causes, harvest the mature fruit and store them in a moderately warm, dry place until Halloween. Cut pumpkins from the vines carefully, using pruning shears or a sharp knife and leave 3 to 4 inches of stem attached. Snapping the stems from the vines results in many broken or missing "handles." Pumpkins without stems usually do not keep well. Wear gloves when harvesting fruit because many varieties have sharp prickles on their stems.
Avoid cutting and bruising the pumpkins when handling them. Fruits that are not fully mature or that have been injured or subjected to heavy frost do not keep.
Store in a dry building where the temperature is between 50 and 55°F.
Common Problems
Powdery mildew causes a white, powdery mold growth on the upper surfaces of the leaves. The growth can kill the leaves prematurely and interfere with proper ripening.
Cucumber beetles and squash bugs attack seedlings, vines and both immature and mature fruits. Be alert for an infestation of cucumber beetles and squash bugs, as populations build in late summer, because these insects can damage the mature fruits, marring their appearance and making them less likely to keep properly.
Questions and Answers
Q. The first flowers that appeared on my pumpkin plants did not form fruits. Why not?
A. This condition is natural for cucurbits (such as cucumber, gourd, muskmelon, pumpkin, squash and watermelon). The first flowers are almost always male. The pollen on these first male flowers attracts bees and alerts them to the location of the blooming vines.
By the time the first female blossoms open, the bees' route is well established and the male flowers' pollen is transferred to the female flowers by the bees. Male flowers bloom for one day, then drop off the plants. The male flowers may predominate under certain conditions, especially early in the season, or under certain kinds of stress. The small fruits, visible at the bases of the female flowers, identify them. There is no swelling on the bases of the male flower stems.
Q. How can I grow pumpkins that weigh more than 100 pounds?
A. Use one of the jumbo varieties. Plant in early June and allow 150 square feet per hill. Thin to the best one or two plants. High fertility, proper insect control and shallow cultivation are essential. Remove the first two or three female flowers after the plants start to bloom so that the plants grow larger with more leaf surface before setting fruit. Allow a single fruit to develop and pick off all female flowers that develop after this fruit has set on the plant.
Do not allow the vine to root down at the joints near this developing fruit because these varieties develop so quickly and so large that they may actually break from the vine as they expand on a vine anchored to the ground.
Q. My grandmother made pies with a green-striped, long-necked pumpkin. Is this variety still available?
A. Yes. The variety is Green-Striped Cushaw. Because it has a unique texture, some cooks prefer it for custards and pies.
Q. Will pumpkins, squash and gourds cross-pollinate and produce freak fruit if I interplant several kinds in my garden?
A. Pumpkins, squash and gourds are members of the vine crops called "cucurbits." The name is derived from their botanical genus classification of Cucurbita (often abbreviated C.). There are four main species of Cucurbita usually included in the pumpkin, squash and gourd grouping. The varieties within a botanical species (which may be referred to as pumpkins, squash or gourd) can cross-pollinate.
Varieties from different species do not. For example, zucchini crosses with Howden's Field pumpkin, acorn or spaghetti squash, small decorative gourds, or Jack-Be-Little miniature pumpkins because they are all members of the same botanical species (C. Pepo).
However, cross-pollination does not affect the taste, shape or color of the current season's fruit. Crosses show up only if seeds from these fruits are saved and grown the following year. Butternut squash, Small Sugar pumpkin, White Cushaw pumpkin, and Big Max pumpkin could all be grown in the same area without crossing because each variety comes from a different species. Because bees carry pollen for distances of a mile or more, in suburban areas where many gardens are in close proximity, fruits must be bagged and pollinated by hand if pure seed of non-hybrid varieties is desired.
Q. What is the difference between a pumpkin and a squash?
A.
It is all in what you call it. Varieties of each of the four species, discussed in this section are popularly called "pumpkins," and varieties of each are called "squash," more by tradition than by system. In fact, orange color sometimes helps determine what is a pumpkin. Two varieties of the same species, C. maxima, hold the records for the world's largest squash and pumpkin. The variety called squash is gray to green and larger one called a pumpkin is pinkish to orange. Shape may vary slightly, but these two freely inter-pollinate and are botanically pretty much identical. Unless you are dealing with specific rules or regulations at a show, you can pretty much interchange the words squash and pumpkin, though you can expect a fight with purists, no matter what you do.
Giant Pumpkins
Growing Giant Pumpkins in the Home Garden
How to grow a really big pumpkin!
When To Plant Pumpkins For Halloween
Halloween is not complete without pumpkins! During the Halloween season, you can buy pumpkins or you can harvest your own.
Growing your own pumpkin gives you a feeling of accomplishment. Here’s everything you need to know about when to plant pumpkins for Halloween.
Plant pumpkins for Halloween during the month of June in most climates. Pumpkin seeds can generally be planted from late May through to early July for an October harvest.
There are lots of things to consider when scheduling your pumpkin seed planting for harvest before Halloween. Read on to learn all about when to plant pumpkins for the Halloween season!
When to plant pumpkins for halloweenWhen To Plant Pumpkins For Halloween?
Choosing Pumpkin Seeds
Caring For Your Planted Seeds During Growing Period
Harvest Season for Pumpkins
Understanding Pumpkin Plant Scheduling for Halloween Decor
When To Plant Pumpkins For Halloween?
It’s key to have your pumpkin crop ready in October! In general, pumpkins take 3-4 months to grow from a seed into a plant with several mature pumpkins on it.
Larger pumpkin varieties take longer to grow than smaller varieties.
In most climates, if you want your pumpkins to be ready for Halloween, this timeline means planting your pumpkin seeds in June. Gardeners in the Northern States and Canada may benefit from an extra few weeks of growing time, which means planting the pumpkin seeds at the end of May. Gardeners in southern states can generally plant pumpkin seeds as late as the first weeks of July for an October harvest.
Grow your own pumpkin seedlings at home from pumpkin seeds or go to the plant nursery and buy seedling plants that have already been started.Check the seed package for expected maturation period length. Big varieties like some heirloom pumpkins might take 120 days to grow, versus more like 80 days for mini pumpkins. Note that it is still possible to plant pumpkins in July (especially in the south) – they just might be smaller. If it’s already the first week of July, consider buying seedling plants instead of growing the plants directly from seed.
The pumpkins might not be the biggest, but hey, that’s ok! I’ve grown mini white pumpkins starting in mid-July for use in this mini white pumpkin Thanksgiving table centerpiece.
Learning when to plant pumpkin so they’ll be ready for Halloween is just scratching the surface. In fact, there are plenty of things that can go wrong if you don’t know how to manage the entire process. To help you with that, below is a guide for best practices when planting pumpkins for Halloween.
Happy halloween pumpkin at the pumpkin patch!Little pumpkins are ready in a few months!Giant pumpkins generally take a minimum of four months to grow.Choosing Pumpkin Seeds
Buy ready-to-plant seeds from your local plant nursery or garden store.
It’s highly unlikely that you will need all the seeds, so it’s best to make some seed selection. What you want to pick-out are the big-sized seeds as they are the ones that have a higher chance of growing bigger and flowering.
Keep in mind that there are plenty of varieties of pumpkin (like these gorgeous Cinderella pumpkins).
The popular ones are Autumn Gold, Dill’s Atlantic Giant, and Casper. Autumn Gold is excellent for carving Jack-o-Lanterns. Dill’s Atlantic Giant is primarily chosen if you want to grow giant pumpkins. Lastly, if you wish all-white pumpkins, then Casper is the go-to option. Casperita is a mini white pumpkin variety.
Caring For Your Planted Seeds During Growing Period
The things that you should be on the look-out for when caring for your pumpkins are weeds, insects, and pests. Also, you’d want to be more vigilant during the early parts of the growing phase, as these are the times that the pumpkins are more susceptible. A good organic fertilizer can also be helpful.
You have to be diligent in watering your pumpkin plants since diseases may easily afflict the vines. The best time to water is generally in the morning. This is especially true during summer months when afternoon temperatures get quite high. Adding organic mulch around the perimeter of the pumpkin is also highly advisable as it helps in keeping the pumpkins stay hydrated.
When you notice pumpkins are starting to form, you can encourage the plant to direct its remaining lifespan into producing pumpkins rather than growing lots of vines. Do this by pinching off the ends of the vines. Vine pruning is an important step not only for space management but also allows the plant to focus on the pumpkin.
Here is a detailed article all about how to grow pumpkins.
Sometimes an early frost can happen. This damages the pumpkin vines and stops growth of the pumpkin fruits. This can be hard to plan for, but is generally not a problem if you’ve planted your pumpkins on the earlier end of the planting window.Harvest Season for Pumpkins
A single pumpkin season will typically range between seventy-five to one hundred days. A few weeks prior to harvesting, remove any leaves that are shading the pumpkins on the plant. By doing so, your pumpkins will have more colour.
You’ll generally know when the pumpkin is ripe for harvesting when the colour has developed and the skin is hard when you touch it.
The stem is another good indicator if the pumpkin is ready for harvest. Observe the pumpkin stem on a regular basis, watching for it to become shrivelled and dry.
When it’s finally time to harvest the pumpkins, it’s advisable that you wear gloves. However, the most important part here is to leave a bit of a stem on the pumpkin. Leave at least one inch of stem, and consider leaving a few inches on medium and larger-sized pumpkins. If you cut the stems too short, there’s a good chance that storability will shorten.
Finally, place the pumpkin under the sun for about ten to fourteen days so it will harden and adequately ripen. This is a great time to display your pumpkin on the front porch! For instance, it could be kept whole on the front porch for a few weeks during the month of October and then carved in time for Halloween. Pumpkins that aren’t ready to be picked until the end of October can be picked and carved fresh, or displayed whole and then used for Thanksgiving pumpkin pies.
Understanding Pumpkin Plant Scheduling for Halloween Decor
Generally, pumpkins will take around three to four months to grow. So the best time to plant them so it will be ready for October is around June for most areas. If you are a bit late, then it’s still possible to start planting them during July if your area is in the south. Otherwise, you may have to buy a seedling plant. Lastly, larger pumpkin varieties will take more time to mature, so plan accordingly. What about how long they last? It all depends on the variety of the pumpkin and the conditions you plant it in. For a more comprehensive guide, check out this post!
When to plant pumpkins for halloweenMary Jane Duford
Mary Jane Duford is a gardening expert and founder of Home for the Harvest. She's also an engineer and certified permaculture garden designer. Mary Jane has been featured by publications such as Real Simple, Mother Earth News, Homes & Gardens, Heirloom Gardener, and Family Handyman.
Halloween is coming - we offer 3 excellent nutmeg varieties of pumpkin for the holiday and eating
Author: Tatyana O. https://floristics.info/en/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=16 Category: Garden Plants Reissued: Last edited:
Contents
- Pumpkin Care
- Varieties I Grow
- Muscat
- Gilea0012
- Pumpkin harvesting dates
- Video about Muscat varieties of pumpkin
- Literature
- Comments
Almost every vegetable garden in our region can meet such a plant as a pumpkin. This culture is popular not only for its undemanding to growing conditions and ease of care, but also for its useful properties.
Pumpkin contains many valuable substances and vitamins necessary for a person, and in terms of iron content it surpasses the best varieties of apples.
Pumpkin is useful for children, the elderly and those on a diet. It is indispensable for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases.
Caring for pumpkins
I grow pumpkins in my garden every year. I don’t allocate a special bed for this culture, it always grows somewhere in my backyard, in the nooks of the garden and feels great. I sow seeds in early May in open ground.
The pumpkin does not require special treatment, but at the beginning of growth I feed it with herbal infusion of weeds, after a few weeks - with yeast top dressing, and after applying the yeast top dressing, I always sprinkle the holes with ashes.
I water my pumpkins only when there is a drought, and sometimes I cut off extra vines that try to get into the neighbor's garden. This is where all my pumpkin care ends.
Varieties I grow
Of the many varieties of pumpkin, I prefer Muscat. Muscat varieties contain more vitamins and nutrients than regular varieties. In addition, they are stored longer, their flesh is sweeter.
This year I have planted three varieties of butternut squash and I would like to introduce them to you.
Hyleya
Hyleya looks like a hard-skinned gourd, but its flesh is very sweet. Interestingly, this variety has fruits of different shapes: spherical, cylindrical and oblong, as if divided into slices.
I read that Gileya has the ability to accumulate less radionuclides than other varieties, and this attracted me in the first place. In mass, the fruits can reach nine or more kilograms.
- Medium-sized tomatoes in a greenhouse - possible mistakes and their solutions
I have been growing this variety for several years now from self-collected seeds.
New
I grow this variety for the first time. Seed manufacturers claim that this pumpkin can be consumed both fresh and processed. Its fruits are oblong in shape, with a narrow waist, after which the fruit expands downwards. The mass of a medium-sized pumpkin is about four kilograms, but there are also larger fruits.
The variety is mid-season and can be stored for a long time.
Muscat
This is a late-ripening variety, which is valued for its high carotene content in the fruits. The fruits can be consumed both fresh and processed. The variety is recommended as a dietary variety, including for baby food, as well as for making juices.
Pumpkin harvesting time
Pumpkin harvesting time depends primarily on the maturation of different varieties. For example, early-ripening varieties under normal conditions will ripen 92-104 days after germination, that is, around August or early September. However, early pumpkins are not stored for a long time, and it is better to process them or eat them as soon as possible.
Mid-season varieties reach maturity in 110-120 days, which means that they start harvesting from mid-September until frost.
Late varieties mature in 120-140 days. They are harvested from the end of September until the first severe cold snap. Such pumpkins are valued for their high keeping quality.
During storage, they ripen, and their taste only improves.
The ripeness of a pumpkin can be determined by external signs: the stalk of the pumpkin should become woody, the peel should harden, and the color of the fruit should become brighter and more saturated. Pumpkin should be stored in a cool dry cellar at a temperature of 3-15 ⁰C.
- Yield review of THREE sweet pepper hybrids – which plants performed best?
I wish you all good health, happiness and success in your business.
Muscat squash videos
Literature
- Read related topics on Wikipedia
- Peculiarities and other plants of the gourd family
- Pumpkin seed (additional information)
- Read more: Halloween
Horseradish: growing in the garden from seeds
Cauliflower: growing in the garden, varieties
Sections: Pumpkin Fruit Garden plants Plants on T
After this article, people usually read
Add a comment
Pumpkins for Halloween, or where did the Jack Lantern come from
Jack-o'-lantern – this is the name of the Halloween decoration that is fashionable today almost all over the world.
The word Halloween itself, like the tradition itself, has changed.
All Hallows' Eve - the evening on the eve of All Saints' Day in the Catholic tradition, eventually turned into the familiar abbreviation Halloween
And the holiday itself from being alien even to Americans, turned into a concept that is almost identical to the concept - "American culture". Everything is changing. We have more than once witnessed how something alien was reborn into something familiar and even useful. Remember at least a fork. It is believed that the fork was brought to Russia by Marina Mnishek, the wife of False Dmitry and for some time the Russian queen. Today we cannot imagine a day without a fork, and in the 17th century the fork in Muscovite Rus' seemed to be something demonic. So for Mniszek's contemporaries, it was a dark story - a story shrouded in riddles and mysticism, as for Americans at the beginning of 19century history of pumpkin jack. And how is swami for us today.
There is evidence that the pumpkin, as a decoration for this holiday, appeared incomparably later than the legend of Jack Lantern
If the legend is ancient Irish, then the pumpkin is North American. And in the form of raw materials for lanterns, it is not at all ancient. It looks like it will be exactly 100 years old in 2021. The origins, as we have already said, are ancient.
So in the original version of the Irish legend, the old miser Jack deceived the devil himself, as he himself thought. He did not let him go to hell in retaliation, but Jack also did not deserve a pass to heaven during his lifetime. And so the decrepit Jack remained forever wandering the Earth with a lantern made of turnips, which he gnawed before he went to the next world. In the turnip lantern, hellish coals shone, which the devil had "thrown" to Jack in order to wander "easier". This is how the Jack-o'-lantern appeared, or rather, its very name Jack-o'-lantern.
And it existed in this, almost unchanged form, until the mass migration of the Irish to the United States in the middle of the 19th century.
Entrepreneurial selection
The inhabitants of the States have always been famous for their ability to "find a gold mine", or simply to benefit from things that are sometimes not obvious, and the tradition brought by Irish immigrants did not escape their attention. In particular, farmers were interested in using the root crop as an ornament.
It is not known exactly how they came to the conclusion that the pumpkin is better suited for this purpose, but they took up its cultivation and breeding of new varieties thoroughly. Either someone left the bark from cooking pumpkin porridge, or simply because there is more space for a candle in the pumpkin than in turnips, or because the pumpkin was first described in the work " The general history of the affairs of New Spain, which is now called Mexico and is located on the North American continent - there are many versions, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
The facts show that pumpkin has always been popular here as a food. But not as decoration.
As the Halloween fashion spread throughout the United States by 1920, the demand for pumpkins took on new meanings. After all, they began to turn it everywhere not only into porridge, cookies or other dishes, but also into Jack Lanterns. This could not but affect how the pumpkin began to be understood by those who grew it.
Breeders set to work and by the mid-1960s, pumpkin hybrids were bred that were perfect for “carving” - in Russian - for carving
This pumpkin still exists today and is called the Howden pumpkin. It can be eaten, but it is considered less suitable for cooking than other pumpkin hybrids, because it was bred specifically for ease of creative use. But, they say, her pumpkin seeds are good. But still it is for "pumpkin carving". Thanks to the efforts of breeders, today it is possible to cut out not only a funny “terrible” grimace from a pumpkin, but also cats, bats and other visual attributes of Halloween.
And 100 years ago, given the thick-skinned pumpkin and its simultaneous fragility, carving it was not an easy task. But for selection, as we know, nothing is impossible, there would be a task. And at that time in America, an example was the breeder and gardener Luther Burbank. His success gave confidence to even the most ambitious agronomists and vegetable growers.
So, we can say that the fashion for lamps carved from pumpkins that has swept the world owes its appearance to breeders, agronomists and ambitious farmers. Without a quality pumpkin, you can't imagine a Jack-O-Lantern surviving on your doorstep for a couple of days with a candle burning inside. But a hundred years later, in the 2020s, the pumpkin has new (or rather old) meanings again.
Increasingly, wax candles are being replaced by electronic ones for safety and fire prevention purposes. Fortunately, there is no shortage of them. This is a good practice, which provoked a new, increased interest in the pumpkin, not as a "blank" for a lantern, but as a tasty and healthy product.
