FLOWER SEEDS

To grow pumpkins it takes appox 90 days. The can get up to 7-10" maybe bigger and are lightly creased, with smooth skin and a very uniform color. They yurn golden very early in their growth, then mature to a deep, glossy orange that seems to typify the mellow tones of autumn.

Pumpkins are exceptionally very easy to grow, given adequate space and patience! Sow the seeds outdoord when danger of frost is past or start indoors in peat pots. Plant the seedlings or thin 3-5 feet apart.

pumpkins are frost senitive. Wait until days are at least 70 degrees and the last chance of frost has passed. Usuallu between late May and late June. Most pumpkins take 85-125 days to mature.

You first need to choose an area that gets full sun. The vines get quite long (20-30ft long) and need room to grow. This doesn't mean you have to have a big yard or farm. If you have a long bed on the backside of your house or garage this can be the perfect place to grow a pumpkin. Your site also needs to have good drainage. If water stands during rainy season in the soil strip along your garage this won't be a good place to grow your pumpkin. I have a very small area on a low bank about 10x10 that I grow mine and it does fine. But I only grew a few seeds!

If your soil has been used in the past to grow flowers, a veggie garden, or even  a lush patch of weeds, then it will be suitable to use for planting pumpkins. Pumpkins don't need to be planted in a mound of soil. Actually just place the seed on the bottom of long narrow ditches. The exception for mounting would be if you live in an area that has frequent rain during the summer months and or your soil has poor drainage.

Choose a spot in your garden when you can plant your seed roughly at the center of where you expect the vine to spread.

One thing is not to get water directly on the leaves. Almost all pumpkins are susceptible to a fungal disease called powdery mildew. The leaves will gradually wither and die. Sometimes the whole vine will die as a result.Keep water off the leaves, and watering in the morning instead of late in the evening, can help starve off this disease.

To ward off those little pests keep those weeds down as much as possible. And as a thought plant sunflowers near your pumpkin patch and they can act as a deterrent for some critters. Or if you have to there's always pesticide.

The perfect pumpkin!