How to Grow Your Own Pumpkins

Pumpkins are so much fun to grow. Pumpkins can be a great project for kids to grow. Pumpkins can teach kids all about how plants grow. One great reason that kids like to grow pumpkins is because kids have a special interest in pumpkins. Pumpkins are used to make jack-o-lanterns at Halloween and if a child plants and grows their very own pumpkin it makes their jack-o-lantern so very special. Pumpkins are also great to use to make pie. Pumpkin pie is a wonderful pie to have during the holidays and when you grow your own pumpkins the pies taste that much better.

Growing pumpkins is easy. Pumpkins like rich soil and sunshine. Pumpkins are a hardy plant that can pretty much take care of themselves once they are established.

You can buy pumpkin seeds at a garden center or anywhere that sells seeds. There are many varieties of pumpkins to choose from. You can buy a small pie pumpkin seed or a jack-o-lantern pumpkin seed. There is also a combination pie pumpkin and jack-o-lantern seed. The combination pie, jack-o-lantern seed is a multipurpose pumpkin. You can also buy a huge pumpkin that can grow to be very big.

Decide which pumpkin seeds are best for your purpose. If you want pie's get the pie pumpkin. If you want jack-o-lanterns then buy jack-o-lanterns seeds. Or a multipurpose pumpkin seed will work well. The type of pumpkin you buy depends on what you want the pumpkins for. Decide where you are going to plant your pumpkins and work up the spot well. Get out all the weeds and smooth the soil. Plant the pumpkin seeds in hills that are about one foot across and nine to twelve inches high. Put the hills about eight feet apart with three to five seeds in each hill.

The pumpkin seeds germinate in about seven to ten days. When the pumpkins plants are about two inches tall then out all but two pumpkin plants leaving the two strongest plants in the hill. Keep your pumpkins weed free and water them if they get too dry. Pumpkins like to be mulched so you can put straw around them or commercial mulch.