Pumpkin

Origin & history

The giant pumpkin comes from South America, where it was brought into cultivation around 4,000 years ago; it reached Europe in the 16th century on Spanish ships. In Germany it was long regarded mainly as animal fodder — it took the Hokkaido from the 1990s onward to make it a common kitchen vegetable. The record pumpkins of the competitive weigh-offs, now over 1,000 kg, belong to the same species.

Varieties

For German gardens the Hokkaido is the safe standard: 1 to 2 kg, early to finish and with edible skin. Musk pumpkins such as butternut belong to a different species (Cucurbita moschata) and taste finer, but need markedly more heat and a long season — in a cool summer they do not ripen. Also check the growth habit: trailing types run four to five metres, bush varieties stay where you put them. Ornamental gourds are not a vegetable.

Care

Pumpkin is a hungry feeder and traditionally sits beside the compost heap; in a bed it wants a generous dose of compost in the planting hole. Water thoroughly and at the base while the fruit is swelling, and slide a board, a tile or a handful of straw under each fruit so it is not lying on wet soil. In cooler areas limit the plant to two or three fruits and cut the vine a few leaves beyond the last one — then what is already there ripens. Do not turn ripening fruit any more; the stalk snaps off easily.

What can go wrong

The commonest setback is slugs on freshly planted seedlings; large, well hardened-off plants and collecting in the evening carry them through the critical two weeks. If fruit stays small and drops off, pollination was missing — in cool weather, hand-pollinating in the morning with a male flower helps. Rotten patches on the underside of a fruit almost always come from contact with wet soil. Mildew in late summer is normal and usually too late to do damage; even so, cucurbits should not go back on the same bed year after year.

Harvest, storage & kitchen

Harvest before the first frost — a pumpkin that has been frosted will not store. Then leave it somewhere warm and dry for a week or two so the skin hardens off, and only then store it cool at around 10 to 15 °C, airy and dark, and not next to apples. Hokkaido is cooked with its skin on, large culinary pumpkins are peeled; the seeds can be washed, dried and roasted.

Frequently asked questions

When do you sow pumpkins?

Raise plants indoors from mid-April to early May, or sow directly into the bed from 15 May to 5 June, about 3 cm deep. Plants go out from 20 May; set out earlier they simply sit in cold ground.

When are pumpkins ready to pick?

From the start of September to around 20 October, and always before the first frosty night. Cut too soon, a pumpkin never really finishes ripening: only once the skin no longer takes a thumbnail mark will it keep in store.

How much room does a pumpkin plant need?

Allow 100 cm within the row and 150 cm between rows, so about one and a half square metres per plant — plus vines that run well beyond that. A container is not enough; pumpkins want a bed they can sprawl out of.

Are pumpkins winter hardy?

No, the plant is frost tender and collapses on the first frosty night, so it is sown afresh every year. Ripe harvested fruit, by contrast, keeps for months once stored somewhere frost-free.

Why is my pumpkin flowering but setting no fruit?

For the first weeks the plant opens almost nothing but male flowers on thin stalks — that is normal, not a fault. Female flowers carry a small ball behind the petals; they come later, and the bigger the plant grows the more of them appear.