Here's How To Grow MASSIVE Pumpkins Before Halloween

Sometimes I just like to slap my pumpkin guys. And if you want to be someone who can do the same, this is the video for you. Because to get a giant pumpkin or any pumpkin by Halloween, when most of us want them, you got to start thinking about planting it sometime in the summer. So this video is for those of you who want to go on that journey with me. I've been growing this giant one right here, but this video is going to show you what you should know before you start growing pumpkins from myself, Jacques, and maybe even a special guest on the team. So the first thing we have to talk about is picking the right variety. And boy, are there a lot. With pumpkins it's actually really important to pick the right variety before you get started. Because of course it will determine how large the pumpkin gets, what color the pumpkin is, and even the use case of that pumpkin. So this is an Atlantic Giant. If you do want to grow a giant pumpkin, I recommend that one. Or we also have one called Big Max. The art on these packets. Also some of my favorite in our entire offering of seeds at Botanical Interests. Then you get into your carving pumpkin. So Spooky is a good one. Jack B. Little is of course a smaller pumpkin that you could carve or you could use as a decorative. Then there's different colors of pumpkins. So I've got a couple of these that I'm going to show you later on in the video. Lumina is a white pumpkin. Very interesting. Pie pumpkin, sugar pie, go for that. There's Gerardale, which we grew last year to great success. Pretty big pumpkin, had a sort of a grayish bluish hue to it. And then I've got Black Cat. Haven't grown this one yet. It's growing this year. We'll see how it does by the end of the season. Then there's the classic Jack-o'-lantern. We actually have a few more that you can mess around with, but it's really about picking the variety that has the use case you want. Are you going for size? Are you going for actually cooking that pumpkin? Or are you going for carving? When it comes to growing pumpkins, one of the things you really have to consider is where you put them. They need a lot of sun to produce big fruit especially or multiple fruit in general. Now, one of the things that also is true about pumpkins is that they take up a lot of space. They are true vining plants. So one of the best ways to do it is to plant it on the edge of a raised bed like this. So this Atlantic giant was planted on the corner next to the irrigation. And as you can see, the vine comes down, spreads out and it takes over this entire field. A single pumpkin like this can really take over an area of like 25 square feet. No problem. And this one right here has one, two, three, four, five different pumpkins maturing at the same time. That's only due to all the sun and the space that we've given it access to. If you've grown pumpkins before, but always thought that they didn't reach the ultimate size you were hoping, it's probably because you were not fertilizing. Pumpkins and actually all squash in general are heavy feeders. If you do not apply any sort of additional nutrition, they will simply never reach their true potential. Now, there's a couple of different things about pumpkins that's also interesting. And one of them is that they absolutely thrive on things like compost and it doesn't even have to be fully broken down compost. What we're going to do today is give this pumpkin the best possible shot it'll ever have of producing giant, wonderful pumpkins. And that is to use a fruit and flower forward fertilizer. At this point in the year, we want to focus on the PK of the NPK, which are the things that encourage rooting and fruiting. So I have a nice little pile of fertilizer here. What you could do is put it right near the bottom of the vine where it actually is in the soil. And you have a couple options here. If you want, you could just mix it in with something like this or use your hand. Or if you feel like you're worried, you're going to ruin the roots. One of the things I like to do is to simply take my compost straight from my pile. And as you can see, it's quite chunky. And that's perfect for a squash because it feeds on decaying organic matter. Now by doing that, we've locked in that fertilizer. The compost will further break down and it's going to create a wonderful nutrition sandwich. That's going to give you many, many pumpkins, probably more than you even need. And by the way, this patch used to grow something entirely different most of the year. And we're going to bring in Paul to explain how you could double the yields from the same place in your garden. From fall to spring, this is an artichoke patch. And for the other six months out of the year, we don't really use the space. So this year we decided to do pumpkins. Five different varieties in fact, of all different shapes, colors, and sizes. So in your garden, think about the spaces that are otherwise underutilized and how much more you can actually jam into those spaces. When it comes to pumpkin pruning and training for your patch, this is a good tip if you have small space or if you want to get pumpkins quicker, or if you only want a few pumpkins for the season. Let's say you just got a couple of kids and you want to carve a few, this will help you out. So main stem coming out of wherever you've planted it, consider that your primary vine. Then you've got stuff like this. This is coming off of the main stem. This would be a secondary vine. Any vine that comes off of a secondary vine is called a tertiary vine. You can actually remove those completely. That'll help control the patch a little bit. And then if you notice, we have this one large pumpkin right here. But if I come up here, we've got other vines with other pumpkins starting to form. So this would be a secondary vine. You can see there's a male flower right there. I've got this female flower right here with a little fruit behind it. I don't really want this one. Over here, hiding, I do have one. It's up to me if I want to keep it or not. In this case, I'll leave it. And I've got a couple that are developing over there. So we actually let a couple of these vines go into the street and they've developed a little bit more than we thought they would, which is fine. We have the space. But if you don't have the space, prune off those tertiary vines and maybe even prune off fruit down to about two, three pumpkins on your vine. So then you actually get them for the season. Inevitably with any plant you're growing, you're going to run into some sort of problem. Now with squash, where we are, we typically end up getting powdery mildew. Most of the time, it's not the biggest deal. It's not going to kill your plant entirely, especially if it comes later into the season, once you've already started to mature your pumpkins. But the telltale sign is usually on the front. You'll see these white patches. You'll see it on the back. And it's kind of hard to avoid because humidity is the main cause of it. So as we get into summer, it gets humid. It's going to happen. One of the other things you might encounter are squash bugs or squash vine borers. And that is really up to you to be out there in the garden, looking at the leaves. Squash bugs typically lay their eggs, right on the underside of the leaves. There'll be a nice little patch of them. You could just pick them off, squish them, do whatever you want. And that should protect you from any major sort of pest issues. Now, the other thing that's also very neat about squash is it has more than one harvest. One of the things you could do is harvest the male blossoms. You want to get them when they're still open. They're looking fresh right in the early morning. These could be stuffed with cheese. They could be used in quesadillas, all sorts of wonderful things. But really the main thing you're growing a pumpkin for is for that big old harvest at the end of the season. Let's go over a couple of tips on when to time that harvest to be just right. The moment is here, guys. How do you know when to harvest your pumpkins of any size? So this one is our Atlantic Giant. And the thing you're looking for, first of all, days to maturity. So if you know it takes a hundred days, if it's been a hundred days, good sign to start looking at the very least. But take a look at what we have here. We've got a nice looking pumpkin. And then this would be the stem. You're looking for what's called corking on the stem and the stem to be a little bit more mature and dry. So you're starting to see some of these lines forming here. But this stem is still a bit supple, pliable. And then you also want to check the underside. So be careful here because you could accidentally remove it from the stem. But just take a little quick peek under. You're looking for like sort of a yellowish field spot. You can give it a bit of a knock, see if you get that hollow sort of thud, which is kind of how you harvest melons as well. They're both in the curcubit family. So the rules sort of are the same for both of these plants. And then of course, based on the color. So the color here isn't quite orange enough, which matches up with my signal of not quite corked enough or dry on the stem and also not quite long enough grown to be ready to harvest. So I know I need to wait a little bit longer. Now, whether you're growing a giant or not, learning how to grow giants helps you grow all vegetables. So you can check out this video right here where I chronicled my journey on growing a giant pumpkin. And of course, if you want to mess around with any of these seeds, you can grab them at botanicalinterest.com. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.