Growing pumpkins at home is a terrific way to have a robust and substantial veggie. Pumpkins have a lot of vitamin A, which can help your immune system. You can use them to make sweet pies, savory vegetable dishes, and everything. However, pumpkins may take up a lot of area in your garden. A small yard or a lack of space in your garden beds may require you to grow pumpkins in pots.
Are Pumpkins Capable Of Growing In Pot?
Because pumpkin plants get so big, many people don’t know this, but they make great large pot plants.
Why Are Pumpkins Better Grown In Pot?
It doesn’t matter how little space you have; you can still grow pumpkins by putting them in pots. You can even use a decorative pot with vines that hang over the edge to make your pumpkins look like beautiful pieces of the garden or front porch decor.
How To Pick A Bowl To Grow Pumpkins
To grow pumpkins in pots, you must be careful about which pot you choose. To grow pumpkins, you will need a very big pot. You might be able to grow pumpkins like pie pumpkins in a 10-gallon pot, but bigger pumpkins would not do well in such a small pot.
Most pumpkins need a larger pot, at least 20 to 25 gallons, so the roots have enough room and food for the pumpkins to grow. Pumpkins do well in big planters that look like whisky barrels. Adding some Nasturtiums or Sweet Peas, you can make a beautiful decoration from pumpkin vines. This can be done in any area that gets full sun.
Container Pumpkin Growing: Vines And How To Handle Them
There are a few problems with growing pumpkins in pots. The hardest part isn’t picking the right pot but dealing with the big vines that grow. When pumpkin vines grow out in a mass, they look great in any container, but the more decorative ones make your pumpkin plants stand out.
If you leave the vines, add flowers like Nasturtiums or Sweet Peas to make them more colorful. However, if you do this, you must move the vines out of your walkways. You can use a trellis to train your pumpkin vines to grow up it.
Since pumpkin vines don’t naturally want to climb, this is a bit more difficult. Use a frame or Teepee-style trellis to grow pumpkins on a trellis. As a consequence, your pumpkin plants will have more area to expand and will be able to grow vertically from various parts of the pot.
How To Grow Pumpkins In Containers
Start by using the biggest pot you have. Everything from a giant blue barrel drum chopped in half to a commercially available resin ornamental planter may be used as a food-safe container. Make sure to put your planter in a spot with full sun wherever you want to grow your pumpkins.
After you put soil and compost into the container, it will probably be too heavy to move. Set it up before you start the project. Pumpkins need to drain well to grow. If they sit in water, they tend to go bad. Because of this, pumpkins are grown on mounds that lift the plants off the main soil, which can get wet.
It will help if you put screens over the holes in your container that let water drain out. Add a few layers of rocks on top of this screen to make it drain better. Add a mix of soil substitutes that drain well, like peat moss and compost, to your containers.
You won’t need to be concerned about your soil being compacted or having a sluggish drainage system since you’ll receive a big dosage of nourishment. Make a hill of soil in your pot, as you would in a garden, so you can plant your seeds above the edge of the pot. Make an inch-deep hole and put three or four pumpkin seeds in it.
This way, you’ll get some good sprouts. After the first true leaves have grown, cut the plants down to just the two strongest ones. Watering your pumpkins too much will make the soil wet and muddy. After heavy rain, ensure the soil is drying out and doesn’t pool at the bottom of your mound.
Mixing your potted pumpkins can protect them from the summer heat without soaking them to get water to the thirsty vines. By connecting your vines with tiny, loose fabric ties, you may teach them to climb the trellises. Cut thin fabrics like muslin into strips to make these.
T-shirts or discarded baby blankets may be reused in this fantastic fashion. Your plants will eventually grow up on their own. If you want the vines to hang down from your pots, move them to where you want them to be. Keep them away from paths where they will be crushed.
If you are growing pumpkins on a trellis, you must support them once they grow. In this case, you can loosely wrap them in nylon fabric to give them room to grow. If you let the vines grow out freely, support your pumpkins on the ground with something like a basket or trivet.
When water builds up under them, this will keep them from rotting. After you’ve produced a few pumpkins, pluck the blooms to inject vitality into the mature pumpkins. Keep adding fertilizer, and when your pumpkins are ready, pick them.