To get ready for planting your future prize crop, there’s no shortage of things you can do. First, it is beneficial to learn or review “How to Grow Pumpkins”. As a result, you will be armed with the knowledge on what you can do to grow the “Big One”.
Preparing the pumpkin patch is a very important first step towards producing great pumpkins. Pumpkin plants have voracious appetites for fertilizers and nutrients. The more you do to improve your garden soil, the bigger your harvest time reward.
Smart pumpkin growers work hard and diligently, to improve their soil. You can make soil improvements both spring and fall. In the fall, gardeners put lots of leaves and raw (hot) manures into the soil, working it in thoroughly with a tiller. In the spring, continue to improve the soil in your patch, with well-rotted manure and composted yard and kitchen waste.
Here’s the basics for getting your pumpkin patch ready for spring planting:
Seed Starting Dates – There’s a wide range of pumpkins, from giants to miniature Jack B. Little pumpkins. Time the planting of your pumpkin seeds, so you will have ripe pumpkins sometime in September.
Chronology – Review the timetable for growing giant pumpkins, from seed starting, all the way to the harvest festivals.
Site Selection – It makes a big difference where you grow pumpkins. The plants have big appetites, consume lots of water and require full sun.
Preparing the Bed – Find out what you can do in the Fall and the Spring, to make your pumpkin patch ready to grow the very best pumpkins.
Soil Preparation beyond the Bed – Pumpkin vines grow a long ways. Enrich your garden soil over the entire patch, so secondary roots can feed and nurture your plants and fruit.
Soil Conditions, Amendments and Mulch – Pumpkin plants need a loose, loamy soil to hold lots of water. The soil in pumpkin patches needs to be as fertile as you can make it.
Ideal Soil pH Level – Find the ideal pH level, so your pumpkins grow healthy and B-I-G.
Adding Fertilizers and Micro-nutrients – In the spring before planting time, add a general purpose fertilizer that is high in nitrogen and has a broad spectrum of micro-nutrients. Work it into the soil.
Garden Manures – High in NPK and micro-nutrients, manure will pump up your pumpkin patch.
How to Grow Pumpkins – By The Gardener’s Network
