In our school garden, we suffer the theft of our pumpkins regularly. The hardest part about harvesting pumpkins is knowing when to bring them in. Harvest the pumpkins and dispose of the vines and leaves. Once the mildew has arrived, there is not much you can do. This is an airborne fungal disease that looks pretty awful, but generally does not affect the growth of the pumpkins late in the season. Pumpkins are susceptible to powdery mildew. Pumpkins can be hand fertilized as well, which leads to an excellent lesson on pollination, cross pollination, and open pollination. The pumpkin will grow from the female flower, which has a distinct bulb shape at the base of the flower. If you have an abundance of pollinator friends in your garden, re-arranging your flowers to make them more accessible is a good idea. Be sure to prepare the soil for pumpkins by digging in well rotted manure or a liquid kelp fertilizer like “Kelp Man” to get your pumpkins growing quickly! Caring for Pumpkin Plantsįertilization can be tricky for pumpkins if the vines are big and bushy. Pumpkins enjoy a good compost heavy fertilizer. It is far easier to go back and thin the overgrowth then to try and fill in later in the season with purchased starts. As always, when gardening with kids, over planting is recommended.
On the westcoast we want our pumpkin plants started and in the garden by June 15th (at the latest) for a crop that can be harvested before October 31st! When we transplant our seedlings to the garden beds, I over plant the area with extra seeds directly into the soil in case any of the transplants fail. I usually start ours indoors in early May. Pumpkin seeds take four months to grow into a ripe pumpkin. Some varieties are better suited for carving jack-o-lanterns because of their thinner rinds, and if you go with a Dill’s Atlantic Giant variety, be sure you have a wheelbarrow available to move it when it is fully grown! Gourds and other highly textured squash can be a fantastic sensory experience for children and will save you loads of money if you regularly purchase these decorative squash. I also recommend you consider what you want to do with the pumpkins when you harvest them, before you choose your seeds. Years where we have grown anything but orange pumpkins, have been years with an abundance of squash still in the garden come October. Consider a mix of large and small pumpkins, smooth and textured, and even colour varieties, like white pumpkins! In my experience, very few thieves know what to do with warty and white pumpkins. There are many choices of pumpkins that you can plant that will all be available to harvest in October. We purchase our seeds from Westcoast seeds.
PUMPKIN SEEDLINGS HOW TO
Read this blog post for a list of my favourites with more suggestions on how to teach using pumpkins. When starting pumpkin plants, you should consider that pumpkins typically grow only 3 or 4 pumpkins on a single vine, less if they’re big pumpkins! So don’t be afraid to overplant those seeds and seedlings! There are so many great books that help learners understand the life cycle of a pumpkin. Many seed starts indoors can be tricky to harden off and transplant with little fingers, but most squash seedlings are hardy and resilient, so a good choice for seed starting indoors and learning how to transplant. I like to start our pumpkin seeds indoors because they make for a reliable veggie start that transplants well.
Pumpkins can be started indoors or sown directly into the garden soil.
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