Thinking of Halloween?

Well I sure am! Because here in Zone 7 it is about time to get pumpkins in the ground. They do take a long amount of days to grow and ripen, up to 120, and in some cases more.

I was gifted some pumpkin seeds (Thank you Heide!) and I was told they get rather large, I hope they are good for cooking as well, because these will be double duty pumpkins. They'll get harvested to sit pretty on my porch for Halloween, then they will be baked into pie, bread and pancakes for Thanksgiving next!

So yesterday, I assembled a make shift pumpkin bed out of a bed we started next to the Japanese Bantam Chicken run. That bed had a rosemary bush transplant orginally, but that sadly died after a few days.

So I made 2 hills to plant 3 seeds in each, the bed is 3' x 6' with nothing blocking growth on 3 sides (and just the coop's run on the back side). I will probably pull the vines down to 1 per hill if they all get going. With how tangled the vines will get, I will try to pinch suckers off, and cut back the main vines when I see enough pumpkins on each to make me happy.

I'm not trying to share or sell these, I just need enough for my daughter to be happy with them. Its not like my watermelon vines.... when I'm thinking of where else I could actually stick another one!!! Mmmmm...