🎃 Pumpkin

Pumpkins are great fun to grow and rewarding, producing a spectacular crop of large orange fruits in autumn for Halloween carving and for the kitchen. They are vigorous, hungry and thirsty plants that need space, sun and rich soil, but they need little else.

Choose between giants grown for show, carving types and smaller varieties good for eating. Trailing stems can be trained up a fence or over a compost heap to save ground.

Varieties to try

Jack Be Little (miniature, orange, edible)Baby Bear (small, sweet, good for pies)Atlantic Giant (huge, for competitions)Rouge Vif d’Etampes (French heirloom, good for soup)Racer (reliable orange carving type)

Sow indoors in late April to May, putting seeds on their edge 2 cm deep in 9 cm pots of compost at 18–20°C. Germination takes about a week. Grow on in good light, and harden off over 10 days in late May.

Plant out in June once the frost has passed, into a sunny site and into soil enriched with plenty of compost or well-rotted manure, preferably in a shallow dip to hold water. Allow 1–1.5 m between plants, with their trailing stems given room to spread.

Top tips

• Sow seeds on their edge.
• Plant into a mound or dip with lots of compost.
• Wait until frost has gone.
• Give each plant at least a square metre.

Water deeply and regularly, especially while fruits swell, and feed weekly with tomato fertiliser from the time the first fruits set. Mulch to retain moisture. For larger fruits, limit each plant to two or three pumpkins and remove the rest, and pinch out the tips of stems beyond the last fruit.

Hand-pollinate female flowers (the ones with a tiny pumpkin behind them) with a male flower, if bees are scarce. Slide a tile or piece of wood under the fruits to keep them off wet soil. Powdery mildew, slugs and aphids are the main pests.

Top tips

• Limit to 2–3 fruits per plant for larger pumpkins.
• Feed weekly with high-potash fertiliser.
• Lift fruits off wet soil.
• Hand-pollinate in poor weather.

Watch out for

Slugs and snailsPowdery mildewCucumber mosaic virusRotting fruit in wet soil

Harvest pumpkins in late September to October when the skin is hard enough that a thumbnail will not dent it, the stalk is dry and woody, and the leaves have started to die back. Cut with a sharp knife, leaving a 10 cm piece of stalk as a handle. Never carry by the stalk.

Bring them in before the first hard frost, which spoils the fruit. To harden the skins for storage, leave them in a sunny, dry place such as a greenhouse or windowsill for 10 days.

Top tips

• Harvest when the skin is hard and the stalk is dry.
• Leave a 10 cm stalk.
• Pick before the first hard frost.
• Cure in the sun for 10 days.

Pumpkin flesh is good roasted, in soups, curries, pies, risottos, breads and muffins. Smaller, sweeter types are best for eating; large carving pumpkins are watery and bland, but can still be used for soup. Roast the seeds with salt or spices for a snack.

Cured pumpkins with the stalk attached will store for three to six months in a cool (10–15°C), dry, frost-free place such as a garage or spare room. Cut pumpkins keep for a week in the fridge. Roast or purée surplus flesh and freeze in portions.

Top tips

• Roast the seeds with salt.
• Store cured pumpkins in a cool, dry place.
• Freeze purée in portions.
• Use smaller types for eating.