According to a study by Queen’s University in Ontario, it is true: in spring, a young man’s (and woman’s) fancy turns to thoughts of love: teenagers, the researchers found, are more likely than adults to conceive during the month of March. The thoughts of gardeners, ever ready to march to a different drumbeat, turn to growing one of those enormous pumpkins that grace the pages of the tabloids early every fall.
Simply put, you have to give it plenty of time – like commencing about now.
The most important item, rather unsurprisingly, is the right seed. Not any pumpkin seeds either but the result of decades of dedicated attention by the late Howard Dill of Nova Scotia, where a carved wooden statue of him may be found in Windsor, N.S. His farm continues to be run by his children, Danny Dill and Diana MacDonald, who sell 2,000-pounds of seeds a year. Strictly speaking, ‘Atlantic Giant’ is a squash, Cucurbita maxima, rather than a true pumpkin, one of a botanical grab bag of naturally happily hybridizing plants.
However, a packet of 15 to 25 seeds of Dills Atlantic Giant P.V.P. is available through seed merchants McFayden for just $3.99 (www.mcfayden.com) or on some garden centre seed racks.
Since they take 120 days to produce mature pumpkins (or squash, if you will), starting early indoors is essential. Experienced growers avoid later root disturbance by filling toilet roll tubes with professional potting soil such as ‘HortiMix’ then planting a single seed in each prepared tube.
While you wait, you might contemplate the impact of pumpkins on provincial geography. Perhaps appropriately, Nova Scotia features a Pumpkin Island, Pumpkin Rock, Pumpkin Ledge, Pumpkin Island Shoal and even a Pumpkinvine Brook in Shelburne.
Neighbouring New Brunswick celebrates a settlement, Pumpkin Hill in Kings, as well as an actual hill and an islet of the same name. Simcoe, Ontario, has a Pumpkin Bay, while in the county of Leeds may be found Pumpkin Island and in far northern Algoma is a Pumpkin Point.
Turning to literature, prairie poetess Sarah Binks was said to have been inspired by hired hand Ole driving the horses Buttercup and Dairy Queen through the family pumpkin garden near Willows, Saskatchewan, to pen her poem ‘Steeds.’ And on the silver screen, despite it being a term of endearment, both male and female, Gene Kelly begs Judy Garland, “Don’t marry that pumpkin,” of her fiancée, the mayor, in MGM’s The Pirate.
As soon as the first foliage emerges, move into bright light but not direct sunlight, lest the tender leaves sun scorch. Lightly tying together the tubes with an encircling strand of string makes maintenance easier. The trick here is to maintain moisture without ever allowing to rooting medium to become a swamp-like morass.
Despite romping away at a rate that upholds their reputation, restrain from planting out too soon. May weather can be fickle, and both soil and night air temperatures cannot be relied upon until the first week of June, perhaps even a few days later.
Meanwhile, dig a metre-square hole at least 30-centimetres deep in a well-drained, sunny position. Fill with well-composted cattle, sheep or horse mixed with a kilo of blood-and-bone fertilizer. Mound this up another 30 centimetres, maintaining the height as the compost settles. Experts call for a thousand pounds of composted poultry poop but there must be limits to city gardening.
You will need one such mound for each pumpkin plant you intend to produce an – dare you dream it – 1800-pound monster fruit. Of course, a few such plants are likely to take over an entire city back yard but if you will think big . . .
This is enough work as well as contemplation at this stage, although you might commence thinking about how to get anything that large out of the rear garden . . . we’ll continue the story in future months.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
