April is a good time to consider planting pumpkins

April through June is a good window of time to plant pumpkins and other winter squashes like butternut and acorn. Pumpkins are a great crop to grow, especially for families – kids particularly enjoy them. The seeds are large and easy to plant, they grow quickly once they sprout, and the large leaves and flowers are fun to track and measure. Gardening is a healthy, educational and fun activity, and growing pumpkins with kids or grandkids is a great way to connect with them.

There are many different types to try; ‘Festival’ squash is a nice, small variety that can be grown in containers on a patio, and it is colorful. There are white ones like ‘Blanco’ or ‘Shiver.’ ‘Grizzly Bear’ is a fun, warty variety. If you’d like to carve jack-o-lanterns for fall, some good varieties include ‘Charisma,’  ‘Mellow Yellow’ and ‘Igor.’ If pumpkin pie and other desserts is the goal, plant pie pumpkin varieties like ‘Small Sugar,’ ‘Orange Smoothie’ and ‘Dickinson’ (which is actually more a type of butternut squash than pumpkin).

Of course it’s fun to try and grow as large a pumpkin as you can. And if a giant pumpkin is the goal, choose a variety like ‘Dill’s Atlantic Giant’ or ‘Big Max.’ The People/Plant Connection, a local nonprofit organization that promotes horticulture therapy, is offering free giant pumpkin seeds for anyone in the Concho Valley that would like to try their hand at growing a large pumpkin. There will also be a weigh-in at the end of the season with ribbons for the heaviest entries. To request seeds, visit https://www.peopleplantconnection.org/ or call 325-656-3104.

Plant in soil that has been well prepared with compost, and be sure to allow plenty of room for the plant to spread out — a plot about 10’x10’ in size. Keep the soil consistently damp for the seeds to germinate (about a week). After the plant has a good root system, water deeply as needed and apply mulch around the plant. Don’t let the plants dry out — the large leaves lose a lot of water to transpiration, and the fruit needs plenty of water to grow to full size.

Leaf cover is good and will help prevent sunscald as the pumpkins grow. Pumpkins are ripe when the skin is hard and the stem has turned brown and dried up. There are a few pests to watch out for, so monitor for insects such as squash bug and squash vine borer, as well as diseases like downy mildew.

Allison Watkins is the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Agent for horticulture in Tom Green County. Contact her at aewatkins@ag.tamu.edu.