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(Best months for planting Pumpkin in Australia - cool/mountain regions)

• Easy to grow.
• Harvest in 105-140 days
• Sow in garden. Sow seed at a depth approximately three times the diameter of the seed.
• Best planted at soil temperatures between 20°C and 32°C.
• Space plants: 90-120cm

A large trailing plant with yellow, bell-shaped flowers, pumpkin is frost tender. Most varieties will take up a lot of room . Grow them at the edge of your garden patch so that they can spread away from other vegetables. Butternut produces small to medium pear-shaped fruit with deep orange flesh . Buttercup are small to medium round pumpkins with dark green skin. There are a number of large pumpkins, some round and flattish - good for storage and eating - others will produce the "Cinderella coach" type giant round fruit which are not such good eating.

Harvest when the vines die off and the pumpkins' stalks are dry. Leave a small piece of stalk attached to the fruit to prevent damp causing rot. The fruit can be stored for months in a cool airy place. In some parts of New Zealand, they are stored on shed roofs.

Pumpkins sometimes need hand pollination if the fruit are not setting well or die off after starting to grow.

Culinary hints - cooking and eating Pumpkin

Cut up, remove the skin and roast with other vegetables or meat.

Young crisp shoots with young leaves can be cooked and eaten - stewed in coconut milk they are popular in Melanesia. Remove any strings and tough parts and stew until tender, or cook as a vegetable in boiling water 3-5 minutes.

Your comments and tips

23 Jan 10 ben parker (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

do u know why pumpkin split just before they ripen?

27 Jan 10 Evelyn (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Ben I believe that if you place some of the leaves of the vine over the pumpkin this shades the fruit and less likely to split. In the hot Canberra summer I have had great success with part-shade for growing the pumpkins. A friend advised that overfertilizing during the growth phase is not good either. Better to have the soil fertilized at the planting stage rather than topping up in between. She may have a point.

02 Feb 10 (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Hi just like to say i love this site,Great to see so many people contributing..Coraki NSW

04 Feb 10 gardening (Australia - temperate climate)

i am looking to grow pumkins when do you plant the seeds?

11 Feb 10 Suzanne (Australia - temperate climate)

Pumpkin seeds should be planted in spring / early summer, but I have just planted my seeds and they are doing great, bit late but I'll see how they go....

13 Feb 10 Sarah (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Hi, I have a very long kent pumpkin vine but no flowers. It's planted at the same time and place as Golden Nugget (which is doing great) and Butternut (doing okay). Any thoughts on why the kent isn't flowering?

21 Feb 10 kylie (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi, I have a pumpkin vine growing in my garden that must of been here b4 i moved in and it has sprouted on it own. It only has 1 decent size pumpkin on it but i am not sure how to tell when it is ripe i live in perth western australia.

22 Feb 10 Leonie (Australia - temperate climate)

Hi have had great sucess planting a pumpkin in straight compost. It has loved it and one plant has given me four decent size pumpkins with some smaller ones growing. Have trailed it up on some plastic lattace over a water tank which has worked a treat!

02 Mar 10 hayley (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Hi, I'm new to this. I am growing butternut pumpkins. They have spread everywhere and are getting beautiful yellow flowers but no pumpkins. What am I meant to be doing? I have had success with my snowpeas, corn and carrots...just not pumpkin. Can someone please help?

07 Mar 10 Bill Crosbie (Australia - temperate climate)

My butternut pumkins form, but die off after reaching only about 10 cm long.Out of one vine I have only managed one only fullsized pumpkin whereas I have lost about 6 to 8 . Soill is sandy with mulch, horse & sheep manure, and watered daily with plenty of sun. I need help for next season please?