Knowing when to pick pumpkins for your autumn baking or decorating is both a tradition and an art. Fortunately, there are several clues that you can go by to make sure you’re harvesting a pumpkin at the very peak of ripeness. These four clues are…
Understanding how to keep pumpkins from rotting is crucial for maintaining your fall display colorful and fresh for as long as possible. Because, unfortunately, pumpkins can go bad fast, and there’s nothing sadder than a soft, squishy pumpkin just days after you’ve harvested or carved…
Do you love pumpkin everything? Well, you’re in luck! Pumpkins are versatile vegetables that you can use for so many different things. They’re an excellent option for gardeners of all skill levels because they’re fairly simple to grow, and if you plan it right, you…
Pumpkins are a fun fruit to grow- they come in so many different sizes, shapes, and colors! They’re great for Halloween carving, seasonal decorations, and even cooking and baking. They can, however, take up a great deal of space in your garden. Thankfully that’s where growing pumpkins on…
When you think of container gardening, leafy greens, peppers and herbs may be the first plants that spring to mind. But you should be thinking bigger- much bigger. You’re missing out if you don’t realize that many types of pumpkins are an excellent choice for…
Pumpkins can reach impressive sizes, but so can their vines. Pumpkin vines are the stiff, trailing stems that spread across the ground from the rooted growing point. There are three parts to a pumpkin vine: Depending on the variety, the main stem can reach up…
We all associate pumpkins with jack-o-lanterns, fall decorations and pumpkin pies. Many varieties of pumpkins are great to grow for all things fall- but they tend to take up so much garden space. So if you don’t have a farm or huge garden, can you…
So you’ve had a bumper crop of pumpkins of some different varieties in your garden this year, and you think you’d like to have some of the same pumpkins growing next year. This leaves you wondering how to save pumpkin seeds for next season- is it…
Pumpkins are a fall favorite, and they’re so much fun to grow in your garden. But when you don’t have the space for full-size gourds or you want to experiment a bit, small pumpkins are a wonderful solution! Small pumpkins typically weigh a maximum of…
If you’re dedicating effort and garden space to growing pumpkins, you want the maximum harvest your plants can produce. To develop the biggest, healthiest fruits, pumpkins need lots of nutrients at their disposal. Pumpkin fertilizer enriches soil with essential macro and micronutrients that plants need…
When you look around and see those hefty, festive pumpkins all over in autumn, it’s almost hard to believe that they all started with just a small seed. But it’s true! Pumpkin growing stages happen over 3 to 4 months in 8 distinct steps: In…
One way to maximize your garden harvest is by eating parts of the plants we normally throw away. It’s certainly true that much more of a plant is edible than we tend to think about, and one perfect example is pumpkin vine leaves. Are pumpkin…
With pumpkins on display almost everywhere you look each autumn, it can be easy to assume that pumpkins are an easy crop that practically grow themselves. But pumpkin plants can run into various problems throughout the growing season, with yellow, unhealthy-looking leaves among them. There…
Pumpkin lovers everywhere know that planting pumpkin seeds at the right time is key to a successful harvest. You don’t want to miss out on this versatile fall crop- carving for Halloween, using in pies, or sprucing up the front porch as a decoration. So…
Pumpkins are beloved in many cultures due to their tasty fruit, and many home gardeners plant pumpkins anticipating a harvest of large, orange, delicious and/or carvable round squash. Pumpkin flowers typically appear in the late spring to early summer, and each plant produces both male…
I’ll make a bold statement: Everybody loves a pumpkin! While they’re harvested in and associated with fall, pumpkins need to be seeded quite early in the season to give them time to grow into the big orange basketballs we know and love. And did you…
So you’ve planted your mini, standard, or large pumpkin vine this year and you’re looking forward to fall! But how many pumpkins per plant should you plan on harvesting? Here’s the short answer: However, this is a very general overview. There are plenty of…
It takes a while for eggplant to reach a harvest-ready stage, and during that process, the plant must go through several different stages of maturity. Once I learned how to recognize each individual stage, it made it easier and more fun to wait for that…
