Growing Pumpkin Outdoors

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Pumpkin is an extremely profitable garden crop. It is useful in cooking, and is good for food for farm animals, and it is stored exceptionally well in winter. Apart from being eaten, pumpkin is prized for its medicinal qualities. It is well absorbed by the body and used in dietary nutrition. Even a couple of plants can provide the needs of an entire family for this product. Moreover, not only the pulp of the fruit itself, but also pumpkin seeds are of great nutritional value and benefits

Conditions for growing pumpkin

Pumpkin seeds need a temperature of + 10 ° C to germinate. But it is better when everything outside the window is + 25 … + 30 ° С. If you hurry with the crops, the seeds will rot in the cold ground. For the development of the plant, the optimum temperature will be in the range of + 20 … + 25 ° С. When the seedlings appeared, and the weather suddenly turned bad, and the thermometer shows + 8 … + 10 ° С, the growth of plants stops. And when negative temperatures are reached, the pumpkin dies.

The cold hardiness of the pumpkin also depends on the variety. So, the most hardy before cold snaps are hard-barked and large-fruited. And such a variety of pumpkin as nutmeg is considered more demanding on heat.

Pumpkin is also demanding on moisture. During periods of drought, fertilization may not occur, and the emerging ovaries fall off. You also need to take into account that the leaf plate of a plant has a large surface area, and, therefore, evaporates a lot of moisture on hot days. Therefore, if you expect to harvest large fruits, you need to take care of watering. But the butternut squash is more adapted to reproduction in hot weather.

When choosing a place for a pumpkin, you need to take into account the photophilousness of the plant. At the same time, it is not scary if there is a relative partial shade in the beds from corn or other plantings on the wings.

It is better to set aside a well-fertilized area for a pumpkin. The optimal type of soil is light, sandy loam. An excellent harvest will be removed from the land filled with manure earlier. The maximum effect will be obtained by those gardeners who use the organic-mineral mixture for filling the beds. To do this, about 4 kg of manure per 1 square meter is introduced for digging. the area of the beds. Then apply for dressing:

• ammonium nitrate - 20 g;

• superphosphate - 30 g;

• potassium chloride - 15 g.

These fertilizers are used when the plants have 5-6 leaves.

An excellent solution would be to set aside for the device of pumpkin beds those areas where manure or humus was previously stored, a compost heap was laid. These corners of the garden are a real klondike for pumpkin in terms of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content.

To discourage pests to feast on sowing material, it is recommended to germinate seeds before sowing. Seasoned gardeners claim that this makes pumpkin seeds less palatable for parasites.

The seeding rate is about 3 g per 1 square meter. beds. The feeding area also depends on the growing region. In the more southern ones, it can be 2, 1 x 1 m, and 1 plant is grown in a hole. Where the climate is cooler, it should be about 2, 8 x 2 m, and in such conditions, 2 seeds are planted in the nest. Later, only a more developed and strong plant will need to be left.

The seeds are sown into the ground to a depth of 3-4 cm. Caring for the pumpkin consists of loosening the soil, weeding the beds from weeds. When sowing seeds directly into open ground, the stem of the plant is pinched over the 3rd leaf. When the pumpkin is grown through seedlings, it is planted in open ground in the phase of the first pair of true leaves. With watering they are not frequent, but make them an abundant volume of water. During the summer, the soil under the pumpkin is moistened 3-4 times.