Giant Pumpkins NZ - Seeds/Seedlings
Seeds
To grow a giant pumpkin, you need giant pumpkin seeds, which aren't your average pumpkin variety. The type you need to get is Atlantic Giant. This is the standard type of seed used all around the world to grow a giant pumpkin.
Where you get this from is your next thing to think about. You can get the seeds from garden centre’s, via mail order at Kings Seeds, Egmont seed company or even on Trademe. You might even know someone that has grown a giant pumpkin and had some seeds from a previous year. If you want to go all out, you can even source them from America with a genetic map of where the seed has come from.
Seedlings
When you plant your giant pumpkins you ideally want to be putting seedlings into the ground, instead of just a bunch of seeds.
There is two ways of getting your seedling. You either buy one from a garden centre, making sure you get a healthy looking one with nice looking leaves and looking strong compared to the others. Or you plant the seeds to have got and grow them into seedlings.
You will want to start the seedlings off in pots which are around the 100mm size, and about four weeks before you plan to put them into your garden. Putting the seed with the pointed end pointing down is best. Pumpkin seeds are generally a very hard seed, and gently filing the seed on the edges may help in faster growth.
Keeping the soil a nice warm temperature of around 25 to 30 degrees C will help in the growing process, so placing the pot on a window sill that is exposed to the sun is a good idea. Using good potting mixture will also lead to better results, then just using some random dirt you found outside. Also keeping the soil moist instead of wet will help prevent the seed from rotting, which is something it can easily do if the soil is too wet.
Seeds will begin to emerge after a week, keep them in their pots until 3 or 4 strong leaves are formed, keeping in mind that the roots of the plant can get bounded if left too long in the pot.
Protecting the seedlings
You can get ultra fancy and buy a small type of green house to cover the seedlings, to help shelter from the cold or wind. Last year the only thing I did was put a cardboard box on top of it when we were expecting a frost, and took it off in the morning. Easy to do and inexpensive.
