The pumpkins are growing!
In January I posted about letting items go to seed as means to grow new fruit. You can see it
.
My plan to save them and allow them to go to seed in my garden area worked!
We have 3 huge vines as a result of me letting the pumpkins go to seed!
Lost of orange blooms! The pumpkins will actually appear later in the summer. They'll be green first, then turn orange slowly. They will continue to turn once we cut them from the vine.
I bought
9. They lasted a long time and started to completely rot by January.
It's easy and basically a maintenance free way to score some cute little pumpkins for the kids to decorate.
The three large pumpkins are not in our main garden, they are off to the side so they can be free range.
I let them rot there through the winter and in the spring they'll start growing a vine and by late summer I'll have at least 3 pumpkins.
This picture was taken in January 2011 -- now I've got three big pumpkin vines from it!So what is letting them "GO TO SEED"
mean? It means that you let the melon or fruit rot in a clear area so you can reap the benefits of the fruit reproducing later in the year.
Why so little numbers from pumpkins that are full of seeds?
Birds and animals will snag some of the seeds. (They'll also grab the little sprouts that may not be firmly attached in the soil later in the seasons)
I know this sounds like a lazy mans way of gardening but people have been doing it for eons and with great results.
Watermelons and similar melons have been known to do the same thing.
Why does it work?
Well the skins of the pumpkin protects the seeds during the winter and spring months. Shielding it from harsh temperatures yet providing moisture.
The remaining portions of the decomposing
skin will shield the seeds from harsh sun -- they only need indirect sun
light to grow.
Pumpkins will be small and green at first, then they'll turn orange late summer, early fall. You can turn the pumpkins to prevent flat spots.
The vine is really long -- that's why we put our mushy pumpkins out of the way so the vine can grow unattended.
So have you tried this time-tested method?