How To Grow Pumpkins?
When it comes to kids and Halloween you simply must have a pumpkin, yet in recent years the price of pumpkins has skyrocketed with them selling for ?5 for a small pumpkin and ?10 for a large one.
Also demand for them in recent years has jumped up massively with them being in more demand, and many people now buying one for each of their children to carve.
Indeed Halloween is not Halloween without a pumpkin.
So why not save yourself some money and grow some pumpkins for the kids instead? Not only do you save money but also growing them is fun and educational for the kids, and you can also be sure that they are 100% organic.
Growing them is very easy as they have a high germination rate, I know this for a fact as I grow them each year. The majority of seeds will germinate so be prepared to give the plants away or sell them.
A word of warning though is that pumpkin plants will grow big due to the very nature of the crop they will produce, so ensure you plant them in an area away from other smaller plants to avoid overwhelming them.
They can be started off inside in 3 inch pots of compost, ensure the compost is kept reasonably wet and place the in a warm Sunny place and they should start to germinate in around 7 to 10 days.
When they are around 3 inches high and all risk of frost has passed then they can be planted out. They should be put into small heaped mounds of soil with well rotted compost already dug into it. Scatter liberally with slug pellets to keep them away from the young plants.
All you will then need to do is regularly water them, as they are low maintenance as plants go. As the pumpkin grows then the only other thing to do is to make sure that you remove any leaves covering the fruit in order for them to get the most Sunshine.
Harvesting your pumpkins - You will know when they are ready to pick not just by their size, but when the stem begins to crack. This is the key indicator that they are ready to pick. Then simply use a sharp knife to cut the pumpkin stalk, never pull it off.
So as you can see pumpkins are easy to grow so give them a go today.
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