Six Things I Learned About Growing Pumpkins

Most everything you read about planting pumpkins will tell you to plant at the beginning of June but after reaching out to a professor at an Illinois university (yes, we sure did), we learned this is waaaay too soon for our region.

The growing season for pumpkins is pretty long. You'll need at least 75 frost-free days and since the South enjoys warm days well into September, you can afford to plant later.

There's a saying that if you want to be a gardener, learn to grow pumpkins.

Mix compost and cow boo-boo into the soil before you plant and give those puppies a good start. Also, make sure the area you plant drains well and the soil isn't too soggy. After you've done that, block out some time each day to obsess over the chance of rain then try to figure out how much water you need in order to meet the one-inch  per week quota.

Also, make sure you don't plant your hills too close together. We read 6' apart was a good rule of thumb but if we had it to do over, we'd have planted them a minimum of 7'. Looking at the distance between hills feels weird at first, but trust me, the vines will claim every inch.

WAY more math involved in planting pumpkins then I realized.

Pumpkins love sun. The more rays they catch, the happier they are, so make sure your vines are getting at least eight hours of the best sun.

Trying to water an entire acre of pumpkin vines is probably the reason why I barely weighed 100 at the end of mine and Tammy's pumpkin patch adventure. We worked like convicts trying to get water to all of our hills and rigged up some chicanery. We had so many water hoses connected to one another at one point, we had ZERO water pressure.

Make sure you water them about 1" per week and don't be afraid to soak the soil around them.

Nothing strikes fear in the heart of pumpkin growers than that of a squash bug having an unauthorized party on your precious gourd.

Sadly, Squash bugs can be the most destructive of your pumpkins You can usually see them with your naked eye but there's skeletonized leaves is another hint. The best advice I could give you would be to get thy self down to the corner hardware store and let them devise your attack plan. I want to burn them with fire. And eye gnats too,

A circle of Seven dust does a pretty good job of handling the other pests.

Just make sure you speak with someone at your local hardware store who knows what's going on before you start mixing-up chemicals and blow something up.

After planting, watering, turning, weeding, treating and all of the other things you'll need to do in order to have successful pumpkin patch, you'll find yourself growing attached.

Our first harvested pumpkin was actually a misshapen freak that we cut from the vine so it wouldn't rob water and nutrients from the prettier pumpkins. We called him Frank for obvious reasons.

I felt so bad for our little pumpkin. I knew no one would ever willingly choose Frank to adorn their autumn decor so I gave him to my son for his 16th birthday.