Having never grown a pumpkin before, but always wanting to… I saw these Big Max pumpkin seeds and I was inspired!
Not sure why or how, just decided it was time. When the kids were younger it seemed like a fun thing to do, but having young kids, working full time, wasn’t allowing a lot of time to dig up the back yard. And given our yard was mostly overgrown invasive plants (like Chinese tallow, camphor, sweet gum, poison ivy and oak, wisteria, ivy and potato vines), it was a lot of work to try to control 2 acres of ‘mess’).
That said, we had a guy come in and help us out with the mess — twice, now it is mostly cleared, but with the vines and tallow still springing up. That said, we have some clearing to put in the pumpkins, and eventually a much larger vegetable garden, but that is for another post.
Since July 4th is the best day to start seeds for Halloween pumpkins, and I wanted mine to have plenty of time before the carving, I decided to start in June… mid June. While it seemed a bit early, Max stated they’d need 120 days… to grow a huge pumpkin, often weighing 100 lbs or more! I thought, “OK, let’s do this!”.
Hydrated a few peat pots and those little guys sprouted within the week. And boy were they cute.
Soon I moved them to larger pots, as we hadn’t picked out the area for “the Patch” yet, much less tilled it up and decided how we would keep the water from running right through during a heavy rain, or hurricane season, which had just started in June.
Sitting in their larger pots, waiting. Then, the day finally came when the Patch was ready and off they went (July 16), to get settled in and ready to grow, with lots of room. Or at least we hope there’s lots of room… time will tell.
