This delicious fruit baring plant is native to North America. The pumpkin is a winter squash, meaning it is an annual, summer growing plant in the genus Cucurbita. The pumpkin grows in a vine close to the ground. You can harvest the pumpkins to have volume of 15 gallons!
If you're looking to grow pumpkins, the soil you will plant them in must be warm and filled with nutrients. Pumpkins can be greedy, so they require full sunlight, compost and a lot of nitrogen along with a weekly dose of 1 inch of water. If you're going to grow your pumpkins in Houston, it is best to sow the seeds in July.
Pests are common in the pumpkin plant. Aphids and beetles can infest your plant, a good way to get rid of the pests with out using a pesticide is to buy reflective mulch (the aphids hate that) or to introduce predatory species to your garden. Ladybugs prey on aphids, if you are using this method, make sure to provide an adequate environment for the ladybugs.
If you have any more questions, these websites provide a lot of wonderful information on care and harvest:
Can you get reflective mulch at normal places like Home Depot?
ReplyDeleteWhat is an "adequate environment" for lady bugs? (I.e. do you think if I bought a box they would survive in front of the greenhouse?)
Probably. I wonder if it isn't too late for lady bugs. As for how fast they move around, consider that with vents open they were gone in a couple of days when about 10,000 were released in the greenhouse.
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