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Growing pumpkins is a relatively easy thing to do. They grow well in the Midwest, where the weather is cold in the winter but hot in the summer. Pumpkins need both in order to grow well. However, they’ll usually find a way to grow no matter what one does or doesn’t do to them.
Pumpkins are a very tough crop. They can grow almost anywhere and under almost any conditions. Unlike many vegetables, they don’t need to be fertilized, not even naturally. Though this is fine and won’t harm them at all, it probably won’t do much good. Even if the weather is bad, the pumpkins will grow. If no other crop survives, pumpkins will. Flooding is the only thing that one really needs to watch out for. This can rot the vines and prevent the pumpkins from growing.
If possible (or desirable), pumpkins should be started inside for a few weeks before being transplanted outside. This isn’t necessary, but works well. It’s easier to control where the vines go this way. They should be started indoors sometime in April, outdoors in mid-May. They will need plenty of room, as the vines are quite large (this is also true of squash, a close cousin of pumpkins). Once transplanted outside, they should be left alone, except for occasional watering if the season is a dry one.
One will see several strange or alarming things while growing pumpkins. Because it is such a lusty plant, vines can even defy gravity and climb up. There was a vine once that grew from a small garden up into a tree that was nearby. It had grown up at a 55-degree angle. All that is necessary in this situation is to gently unwind it without breaking it and set it along the ground. If there are no blossoms, it can be left. If there are blossoms, the pumpkins that come in will be ruined by the branch’s angle. One may not see this until it’s already high up because these vines grow very fast.
A couple of weeks after the blossoms appear, small pumpkins will start to grow. Some will be quite large, while others will be small. By this time, the vines should be around twelve feet long and spread along the ground. Do not pick up the vine if there is a pumpkin on it, as they are heavy even when they’re small, and it’s possible to damage the vine, the pumpkin or both. Children who are gardening for the first time should be warned not to do so.
Once the pumpkins are nearly as big as they’re going to get, something that is rather alarming the first time happens: the pumpkins turn dark green, and look as if they are rotting. This isn’t true; they are supposed to do this. After a week or so, orange will slowly begin to break through the green. First it will be dots, then spidery lines, and slowly it will turn completely orange. When this happens, they’re ready to pick. This should be sometime towards the end of September or the middle of October, depending on when they were planted.
They won’t keep for more than a couple weeks once they have been picked off the vine. One should hold off as long as possible (but not so long that it does die and begins to rot outside). Then it can be used for pumpkin pies, jack o’ lanterns, eating pumpkin seeds, etc. If the seeds are washed off but not heated at all, they can be kept in a bag and planted for next year’s crop.
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