Creating 1 Acre Pumpkin Patch

[Luremaker]

I have always enjoyed planting pumpkins. This year I planted about 4000-5000 plants on 1 acre. This is a new garden plot for this summer, last summer I had cattle on it. My soil has very good drainage so no hills are required. Here are the steps I followed.

1. Last September I tilled several times and removed rocks and more rocks. Some of the rocks I found were huge. This took about 7 afternoons over three weeks.
2. Planted about 80lbs of winter rye last October.
3. May 22, tilled under the winter rye. Picked a few buckets of stones.
4. May 23, spread 165 lbs of 19-19-19 fertilizer.
5. May 24, tilled in fertilizer. Picked more stones.
6. June 1, spread and tilled in 110 lbs of 11-55-0 fertilizer. Picked more stones.
7. June 3 after heavy rain planted between 4000-5000 pumpkin seeds in rows spaced 5 feet apart every foot of so. These will be thinned to about 1900 plants in a week or so.
8. Using my garden tractor with a 40 inch wide water filled roller, I rolled each row so the seeds had good soil contact.
9. Just before the vines begin to spread I will top dress with 46-00-00.

Here's how I planted my seed in one day with a little help from my wife and 2 sons.

We planted the first 10 rows by hand using what I call a planting pipe. My planting pipe is old 3/4" dia pipe about 4' long cut to a 45 degree angle on the soil contact end. We planted three seeds every 3 feet apart in each row by pushing the pipe an inch or so into the soil and dropped a seed down the pipe. Beats bending over for each seed. Works very well on tilled soil. This works great for precision seed dropping but is slow going.

We figured there must be an easier way to plant the seed. My wife has what is called a precision planter with a number of different seed plates. We decided to try seed plates until we found one which worked with our pumpkin seeds. Sure enough we found one plate which almost worked. It would drop a seed every 3rd or 4th hole in the seed plate.

So we proceeded to plant the remaining rows with the precision planter in less than 2 hours.

It has been about 10 days since we planted and the germination is excellent. The spacing on the hand planted rows is every 3 feet and the spacing on the planter planted rows varies from 6" to about 2 feet. Nothing a little thinning can't take care of.

I have attached a few photos of the creation of my pumpkin patch and will also later post pictures of the planting process.

 

[PBinWA]

Nice work on the Pumpkin Patch. It sounds like you know what you are doing.

Do you have deer? If so, how do you keep the deer out? I tried to grow some pumpkins out in the field last year but the deer would come along and eat the flowers as soon as they opened.

Or do you have to plant 1000's of plants in order ot overload the deer?

Just curious.

 

[DirtClod]

Hello LureMaker; First let me say I envy you living up there in Canada. One day I'll make it up there. I live in south Alabama. 1. I am curious as to why you spread the fertilize instead of applying it only where you planted the seeds. 2. Why you added two different fertilizers at different times. 3. Did you do a soil test to determine this? Your land looks very fertile and beautiful. I wonder have you broken your tiller on any of those big rocks? I also planted some pumpkins this year. I planted two different types. The small baking pumpkins and then the regular jack-0-lattern type pumpkin. I fertilized with 17-17-17 under the hills, then planted 6 seed in a row about 2" apart about 1" deep then packed the ground with my hand. I also laid each seed flat, ( I read somewhere that that helps). I planted the hills about 6' apart. I am thinking about planting a few okra seed between the hills and maybe some collard seed also. Just fooling around a little, if they make then great and if not I'll disk it all up and plant turnips. Have you been planting pumpkins long? Do you have trouble up there with deer/moose? Are you a hunter? Looking forward to your reply. Have a nice day.

 

[Luremaker]

Nice work on the Pumpkin Patch. It sounds like you know what you are doing.

Do you have deer? If so, how do you keep the deer out? I tried to grow some pumpkins out in the field last year but the deer would come along and eat the flowers as soon as they opened.

Or do you have to plant 1000's of plants in order ot overload the deer?

Just curious.

Hi PBinWA, we have lots of deer around here but they seem to prefer what other people grow instead. So far no problems with deer.

 

[Luremaker]

Hello LureMaker; First let me say I envy you living up there in Canada. One day I'll make it up there. I live in south Alabama. 1. I am curious as to why you spread the fertilize instead of applying it only where you planted the seeds. 2. Why you added two different fertilizers at different times. 3. Did you do a soil test to determine this? Your land looks very fertile and beautiful. I wonder have you broken your tiller on any of those big rocks? I also planted some pumpkins this year. I planted two different types. The small baking pumpkins and then the regular jack-0-lattern type pumpkin. I fertilized with 17-17-17 under the hills, then planted 6 seed in a row about 2" apart about 1" deep then packed the ground with my hand. I also laid each seed flat, ( I read somewhere that that helps). I planted the hills about 6' apart. I am thinking about planting a few okra seed between the hills and maybe some collard seed also. Just fooling around a little, if they make then great and if not I'll disk it all up and plant turnips. Have you been planting pumpkins long? Do you have trouble up there with deer/moose? Are you a hunter? Looking forward to your reply. Have a nice day.

Hi DirtClod, Thank for your comments and I hope you and other TBNers visit Canada at least once, lots of great things to see. Now to your questions.

1. I spread the fertilizer because pumpkins are vines and the vines re-root every few feet so it is best to have fertilizer spread around for the vines to find.

2. Usually I spread all the fertilizer at the same time but my supplier was out of super phosphate (11-55-00) and had to wait a few days for it.

3. Yes, I did a soil test and I plugged the results into the OMAFRA's fertilizer calculator, selected pumpkins and I went with the recommended amount of fertilizer.

4. I have yet to damage my tiller on the rocks around here. I do however have the slip clutch set very light so that it will slip when it hits a large rock.

5. Lots of deer around here. We have one of the highest deer populations in Ontario. Moose live farther north of us.

6. I have been growing pumpkins since I was a kid. Last year I grew larger pumpkins in my compost area than I did in my garden. I've been growing pumpkins in the same spot for the past four years and think it was time to rotate that's why I have the new patch this summer.

 

[Luremaker]

Here is a photo of the precision planter and it dropping the seed into the ground.

1st picture is of the planter..
2nd picture is of the planter's seed hopper.
3rd picture is of the seed dropped into the ground.
4th picture is of my planted rows.
5th picture is of the germinating pumpkins after 7 days.

Steve

 

[johnk]

You did a terrific job on the pumpkin patch. Had to be a little tough with that seeded. How long did it take to plant all those rows. I have the same seeder and all the animals in the vicinity were glad I gave them varied treats. I used to plant about 3/4 acre and it everything was always eaten to the soil. Didn't feel like putting a fence around the place so I planted hardwood cherry and Black walnut in the garden spot. Still have the seeded and plates though.

 

[jinman]

Here is a photo of the precision planter and it dropping the seed into the ground.

Steve, I believe everybody has one of those planters. They work great. It does seem to be quite a job to hand plant a whole acre, but with your well-prepared soil, I'm sure that was just a nice "walk in the park."

When using my planter, I found that I really needed a little more weight on the front wheel since the planter is so lightweight. I also had some trouble with cowpea seed popping out of the drop plate and sometimes flying out of the hopper. I especially liked how the foot is adjustable for different planting depths. I also liked the fact that you can make the rows as close as you want without disturbing previously planted seed. You can't do that with a tractor and a one row planter very easy. Overall, I think that planter is really worth the money I paid.

I'm looking forward to about two weeks from now when you thin your plants and take some more pictures. You are going to have a really nice fall pumpkin patch. I just have a few hills this year and mine will be early, probably by the end of September.

 

[Greyfields]

I agree that this is a great post! I also have one of those planters. Like mentioned above, you do have to apply pressure to the front week to keep it turning rather than skidding. I also find with corn seed it will often skip one here or there. No big deal, since corn is thinned anyhow.

 

[ratter]

Thanks for posting this, it was very educational. I just planted a very small plot of a few dozen pumpkin plants, but I will probably attempt something of this size next year if I have any success this year. I figure the kids will enjoy it...