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Mary Lowther column: Secrets to sharing the garden with pumpkins

Pumpkins and other winter squash start easily from seed indoors, about mid to late April
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Pumpkins curing in the sunlight. (Mary Lowther photo)

By Mary Lowther

A pumpkin plant needn’t take over the garden if it’s grown up a fence, tree or house wall, or at the end of a bed so it can sprawl on the grass. I grow two at each end of my corn bed and train them to surround the patch to keep out raccoons who, presumably, find the hairs on the pumpkin vine painful. Come the end of the main growing season, I’m always delighted to find heretofore hidden treasures amid the decaying vines.

Pumpkins and other winter squash start easily from seed indoors, about mid to late April, with plans to set them outside mid to late May. If the roots fill the pot before the soil is warm enough outside, re-pot them into larger pots. When I set mine outside I cover them with Wall O’ Waters that I filled up with water the previous day to warm up first. This product surrounds a plant with water-filled plastic tubes that keep the plant warm at night. Once the plant has grown through the open top I pull off the Wall O’ Waters and let the plant sprawl. It doesn’t take long.

Throughout the season I direct the vines to where I want but sometimes a section will get away on me and I’m in for a surprise; this fall I found a vine had grown under the fence into the alley where three little pumpkins grew, unnoticed. When you see a squash developing, place a board or straw under it to keep it up off the ground where it may rot. Once you have as many squash as you want, nip off growing tips and all flowers. Keep nipping them off as they re-grow so that all the plant’s energy can go to filling out and ripening the fruit you have chosen.

When my vines have died off, I cut the stems of the fruit with secateurs, leaving some stem attached. Handling them gently, I bring them inside and let them sit in a sunny spot for two weeks to cure, turning them occasionally. Then I wipe them with a thin coat of oil to help preserve them and store them in boxes under a table in the house. OK, the dining room table. David learned long ago that if he married me he’d be sharing the house with hanging ripening tomato plants, drying herbs, baskets of drying seeds and shelves of fermenting vegetables, so he doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when pumpkins take over the dining room. Stored like this at room temperature my squash last until March.

Seeds are dead easy to save but make sure that you grow all the same variety in a given year because squash can cross-pollinate to produce something you might not like, like eggplant (OK, not eggplant). To save seeds, scrape them out along with the threads that hold them in, put the mixture into a jar and add some water. Let this sit to ferment for a few days to kill off any spores that could prevent next year’s germination. Strain the mixture and pour it into a water-filled bowl. Swish it around and separate the seeds from the liquid. Dry the seeds well, put them in an envelope labeled with the variety and date and store them in a cool, dry place.

I like eating pumpkin seeds so I’ve tried various recommended ways to roast them, but chewing the shell always puts me off, so I’m going to try growing a hull-less variety like Lady Godiva next year. Given that the flesh, we are told, is not for eating, it seems like such a waste to grow a pumpkin just for the seeds, but I think it’s worth a try.

Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.