This year I grew two varieties of pumpkin - Whangaparoa Crowns from purchased seed, and my own experimental hybrid of Pink Banana Jumbo squash crossed with Whangaparoa Crowns last time I grew them side by side back in 2017/2018. I love PBJs - they have a very flavourful sweet flesh (not as sweet as butternuts which I find too sweet, but much better than standard crowns), but when I grow them the fruits are typically 10-18kg each, which is way too much pumpkin at a time now our household is down to 2-3 people most of the time. So I was aiming to get the same flavour with smaller size. 
NB: For photos of the pumpkin patch over the growing season, scroll to the end of this post.
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The previous crop I grew was very successful - yielding 378kg (in 5 varieties) of squash/pumpkins from 50sqm. At the time it was done to also reclaim overgrown ground, and as this time I had another area which was formerly in garden beds but was now completely overrun with couch, buttercup and bindweed, I use the same, slightly modified, technique to grow the crops this season too, so I could reclaim the area while also yielding a crop. (For pics etc not long after planting see HERE). In a nutshell, I laid out compost in two rows (there was a third between in which I planted zucchini and watermelon), covered the compost with weedmat, and laid down black plastic between the rows and over the surrounding area I wanted to reclaim, all pegged down. I cut 6 holes in each row of weedmat, sowed seeds directly into it. A couple of weeks later I added a dessertspoon of dolomite to each hole and watered in (because I forgot to sprinkle it on the compost as I would otherwise have done). I did not feed with anything else. I watered in the first few weeks until the plants spread, and only twice since. The total original covered area was 70sqm. I did extend this with some carpet we pulled from our house over summer (to keep the grass down) and let the plants spread somewhat further, to a total of approx 90sqm overall, bearing in mind I was encouraging them to grow away from the centre row of other plants, and had lots of space. They could otherwise easily have remained within the 70sqm, or less. Ultimately there were 10 plants each of crowns and hybrids. 

As the plants grew, the supposedly Whangaparoa Crowns looked more like an Aussie variety such as Jarrah to me - their size is larger, groves deeper, and until the very end of their ripening their colour much greener than a W.C and more like a Jarrah. Either way they are a crown pumpkin. The hybrid was fascinating to watch - at first I was seeing lots of rounder orange pumpkins form (as I expected). But once the plants started to peak and subside, I could see I also had quite a few long orange (like PBJs) as well as some long greys, and some round grey pumpkins too. All expressions of the two they were hybridized from were growing. The orange hue turns to pink as they ripen.

And then it came time to harvest, count up, and weigh the pumpkins.

Total weight of crown pumpkins: 308.2 kg
Total plants: 10
​Average number of pumpkins per plant: 4.2
Average per fruit: 7.3 kg
Average yield per plant: 30.8 kg of pumpkin

For interest's sake, I've divided the results here into groups according to the shape and colour of the harvested fruits. Note, some individual plants had a variety of fruits on them. 

Total weight pink and round: 133.8 kg
Average per fruit: 4.3kg

Total weight grey and round: 56.2kg
Average per fruit: 5.1 kg

There were three pumpkins that were long like a Pink Banana Jumbo, but grey in colour like a Whangaparoa Crown. They are marked with an asterix in the chart.

Total weight long pumpkins: 72 kg
Average weight per fruit: 6.6 kg

Total weight of hybrid pumpkins: 262 kg
Total plants: 10
​Average number of pumpkins per plant: 5.3
Average per fruit: 5 kg
Average yield per plant: 26.2 kg of pumpkin

Pumpkins, properly prepped and stored, will keep up to a year. In fact from the last harvest I still had quite a lot of perfectly fine spaghetti squash 2 years later. I was sick of them by then and sold the lot.

How I prepare my pumpkins or squash for storage:
Harvest with at least a couple of inches of stem left on. Sit in airy and/or somewhat sunny place until dry.
Brush off any loose dirt. 
Wipe over entire surface, especially around the stem, with mild white vinegar solution (to kill any fungal spores present).
Air dry thoroughly.

I then store them so they are not touching each other on shelves on my north-facing verandah. This is a warm, airy position. They also keep well in racks inside, but I don't have enough space in my very small kitchen to keep many. I have previously tried keeping them in a garage, but it is south-facing and not fully enclosed or insulated. As a result, they would get damp air condensing on them overnight, and then quickly rotted. 

Last time I made shelves out of planks of wood on bee boxes. This year my lovely husband has built me some hanging shelves for most of the crop, and also helped me purchase a shelving unit for some of the bigger ones. I have kept/stored 50 pumpkins this way, and given the rest away to family and friends. More will be given to those in need of them during the year. 

Doesn't growing pumpkins over plastic prevent them putting down extra roots? It is possible for pumpkins grown directly on the ground to put down what is known as "peg roots" from some of the junctures in the stems. As far as I can tell, these roots serve mostly to stabilise the plant, not to provide much in the way of additional nutrition. Either way, I'm more than happy with the results, which speak for themselves. And I was using plastic not just for the sake of the crop, but to kill off underlying weeds in anticipation of future redevelopment of this area.

Doesn't plastic "kill" the ground underneath so it won't grow anything? I was asked this a lot during the growing of my 2017/2018 crop; but that area has been in very productive garden beds since, with the addition of only an inch deep layer of compost and a sprinkle of dolomite as I've pulled back the plastic bit by bit and planted each bed. Most of the pics you see of garden beds in my monthly garden updates this year are in that area. Plastic as a short-term solution to kill weeds works very well. Charles Dowding uses it quite a lot when developing new garden areas in his no-dig system. Sure, if you leave it in place for a long time, especially if the ground underneath is dry, it will eventually cause damage to soil microbes etc. But in the short term, over soil with plenty of organic matter and moisture, I have found it to not be a problem. 

Why'd you grow so many pumpkins?- we couldn't eat that many in 5 years! When I sowed the crop, I was certain only of reasonable, edible crops from the crowns. The other, being an experiment, could have yielded inedible fruits only suitable for stock food or compost. Fortunately they've turned out very well so far. The ones I've cut open (example pictured below) have had lovely, orange, sweet and edible flesh, just like I was hoping. And I had the space, so why not? Besides, I love to grow extra and feed people with it. 

Was there a cost to doing this? Yes, there was, though there did not necessarily have to be. I purchased 2 cubic metres of compost, most of which went into the three rows set up. I was also recovering from a bad back/hip injury and not capable of shovelling and wheelbarrowing that compost myself, or bending to lay the plastic and weedmat in the first place, so I hired some help for the initial set up. I already had the plastic (reused from the previous crop), weedmat (left overs from other projects) and pins in the shed. So I invested about $250-$300 in setting this up, which turned out to be around $2/kg yielded. In a different year, I might have had enough home made compost to use, and been able to do the work myself, so would only have spent the approx $4 for the packet of crown seeds. However, I could easily sell part of the crop as a cash crop to recover the costs. 

The patch was prepared in early November. I had sown seeds in pots in the greenhouse, intending to plant them out. However, I was not happy with the quality of the seedlings, so tossed them, and sowed directly into the ground with fresh seed in late November. The following pics are captioned with dates. The first one I took was 3rd Jan. From that point on the growth was exponential. 

March. The beginning of autumn. The last week or two have still been mostly very hot days but with somewhat cooler nights. February has been another very dry month - we had two brief patches of rain and that was it. This is also the time of year of much harvesting and preserving or putting food up for storage in various ways. Work and life have been very busy, but I've managed to make a little progress here and there in the garden. Let's take a wander....

Since last month's pics, the bed shown above has had the major middle section of it refreshed, no-dig style. I pulled out the shallots that were there, laid cardboard down. used some posts I got from a guy who was dumping them at the local tip to create some temporary edges, spread compost on top, and topped off with wood chip. The intention here is simply to feed the soil and suppress weeds, knowing I wouldn't be planting here for a couple of months yet, as I wanted to let the self-sown choko that was on the right edge grow - I moved onto the space the growing frame I made from various dump finds some years ago, and the choko is now happily growing up it, and just beginning to flower. Some more pics of this being done below. At the front end of this bed are zinnia (bees and butterflies are loving them) and chives, and a few other bits and pieces I needed to plant - a dahlia, a self-seeded marigold, a couple of geraniums and a daisy grown from cutting this season etc. At the far end are still my marshmellow plants, with some beetroot and kohl rabi behind and under them. 

Now starting to try and encroach on the above is my pumpkin patch (below). Still pumping out flowers and new fruits, there are lots of really big pumpkins hiding under there. 

​I sowed Whangaparoa Crowns on one half, but most of the fruits look more like Jarrahdale or similar, being more grey-green with deeper groves than the usually light grey W.Cs. As long as they taste good! My hybrid Pink Banana Jumbos in the back half are all producing well, with a few of the longer fruits typical of PBJs, but most being the rounder shape I expected. 

Some of the older leaves that are underneath and shadowed by the younger ones are just starting to show the first signs of powdery mildew, right on cue. By that I mean, I find it's normal for curcubits (pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, zucchini etc) to get powdery mildew at the end of the season as they start to decline. Healthy, well fed plants should not succumb to it during their prime, but as they age (like most of us) they weaken and become vulnerable. I don't do anything about it - as I've found in the past that's a complete waste of effort. I expect it will run it's course and by about the end of this month the plants will all be dead, revealing all the mature pumpkins that are currently hidden from view, which is always exciting :-). Someone asked me today whether I should take off the flowers that are still coming up. My answer is no - the bees are loving them; from no honeybees only a month ago, my garden is now swarming with them. It's very common to see 3-4 honeybees and a bumble bee all in the same pumpkin flower together, or as in the pic below, two bumbles and a honeybee. There were several flowers close together, all similarly laden.

The zucchini in the middle of the pumpkin patch have been pumping. I wade in there once a week or so and harvest. I'm happy to let most of the fruit grow to marrows, which I like to use to make big batches of pasta sauce, and which also store well out of the fridge, in which I have severely limited space. We can only eat so many zucchini. The pictures below are from one picking, along with some tomatoes and cucumbers from the greenhouse. The watermelon, however, aren't doing well - it was a mistake to plant them there, as I can't easily access them for regular watering, which they need. The pumpkins have been fine with only one watering since they started to sprawl, as they have much deeper root systems, but the watermelon needed less crowding and more water. 

A couple of weeks ago I picked my Damson plum crop. It's just a little tree, which I keep pruned small so I can reach everything from the ground, but it produces prolifically! I turned this lot into a mixture of jams, bottled fruit (some just plums, some in combo with mixed berries and chokos, and some more in combo with feijoas) and some plum and feijoa jelly, as well as giving some away.

Wanting to try something a bit different to use on porridge or cereal and also use up things from the freezers, I defrosted a bag of mixed berries from the freezer as well as a bag of diced chokos, and cooked those up with some plums, adding some honey to sweeten to taste before bottling. 

I also defrosted a container of last year's feijoas and cooked those up with some plums and a little sugar. When I bottled them, there was quite a lot of left over liquid, so I strained it through a muslin cloth and turned it into jelly, just because I could. Looks gorgeous. 

I also bottled some plain stewed plums with some honey to sweeten a bit, but left deliberately quite tart. Later I plan to add to this with stewed apples or other fruits and rebottle or make into pies or whatever. I can adjust the sweetness accordingly. 

Also pictured above is a batch of cucumber pickle I made at the same time, to use up the cucumbers my neighbour gave me as hers started producing before mine.

Use the slideshow below for closer pics of each product.

Getting back to the garden....there will be lots more fruits to harvest soon...Click on the small photos below to see some of them via the slideshow.

This compost pile is nearly as full as it's going to get - since taking the pic I've added another brown layer on top - just waiting for some rain to give it a good wetting and then I'll cover and leave it, and start another pile. I'm aiming to produce as close to 3-4 cubic metres of compost as I can this year. 

When mowing the lawns I left this patch of clover for the bees, along with plants that are around the edges of the pumpkin patch. It won't take long for the clover in the rest of the lawn to spring back to flowers, and once it does I'll mow this patch. 

Five varieties of potatoes in pots next to the bed with the choko are doing well. 

Now to the greenhouse...slideshow with captions below.

And in the front garden (below)...over the last weekend of the month I started working on this....laying cardboard down after roughly weeding this bare part (and also removing a wooden edged garden bed that was there). More posts from the dump and old timber we had lying around form the edge of where I want to put a garden bed.

About 3 inches of compost added

I've started to lay woodchip on the paths. Bee boxes added in the foreground will be filled with soil, topped with compost, and planted in beneficial flowers for now. Later I'll remove the boxes, add an edging, and plant strawberries along there. The space this side of the bee boxes is full of couch and buttercup - I'm going to lay the plastic down to kill that off before I finish expanding the gardens to fill the available space - there is a fence off frame to the left that divides this area from a rough lawn that the sheep graze; I want the fence re-done with a deep root barrier below it to stop the weeds spreading back in.

In the past week I've, taken out most of my year-old broccoli and kale plants, leaving in two broccoli to flower for the bees, and couple of kale stubs to regrow. I'm thinking now though I may clear them all together. The late planted zucchini in the middle is doing well. This bed will get an inch of compost added as a much before planting out new seedlings that are nearly ready to go. 

These pics below were taken on 21/2 - these plants were put in last March and have been steadily producing heads and side shoots ever since. I've just got tired of broccoli and it's time to make room for something else. Besides I have more broccoli a couple of beds over. As you can see I haven't been keeping up with picking them.

Really pleased with how my Russian Silvery Fir bush tomatoes are doing under the micromesh - lots of fruit forming - even some at the far end that are becoming red. Lettuces planted along each long side are also doing well. This is definitely proving to the be the best (basically only!) way to successfully grow this variety of tomatoes.

The messy bed at the end - producing lots of broccoli, lettuce, spring onions, celery and perpetual spinach. But needs the nets removing and a good weeding!

Sweetcorn and marigolds coming along nicely. Need to pop in some pea seed along the base of the trellis soon. The corn was a late addition, but hope to get some nice cobs from it.

Sage, mint, stevia and perpetual spinach along the back edge. Where the stool is I'm going to add some thymes that are growing in my kitchen currently. 

More bottling - the Garden Goodies Pasta Sauce is what I use lots of marrows and tomatoes in, along with lots of other goodies as the name suggests. And my pickled cucumbers are always big favourites.

There's always more to see, but I'm going to sign off here and go set up another batch of pasta sauce to cook. I've got beef stock loaded with veges simmering in the crockpot, and I'm going to brine a rooster to tenderise it before slow cooking. I better check the sauerkraut that is fermenting on the bench too. 

I'll leave you with a pic of the first harvest of nectarines from a seedling my son dug up from the side of the road, that had sprung from a discarded pit, and I've had sitting in a pot ever since. This winter I plan to plant it out, along with more fruit trees, in part of where my pumpkin patch currently is. They were yum!!

Happy gardening everyone!

My last post showed pics of my garden on 3rd January, including my new patch of pumpkin, zucchini and watermelons. This post shows pics taken of them 10 days later, compared to the previous ones. It's amazing how fast they grow at this time of year; being heat lovers they need things to warm up before they really get going. Yesterday it was 28 degrees in the shade here! Today is only slightly cooler. Perfect squash and watermelon growing weather!

The only thing extra I've given the plants, other than some watering from time to time, is a spoonful of dolomite under each plant a day or two after the first pics were taken. This is to ensure adequate calcium to prevent blossom end rot when the fruit begin developing. Dolomite lime is high in both calcium and magnesium; it is a soil conditioner, helps break down organic matter, and encourages strong plant growth. I would have sprinkled it on the compost before laying the weedmat, only I didn't think of it at the time. So I added it later, one dessertspoon into each planting hole and well watered in.

Now for some close ups :-) 

I'm hoping these crosses will produce the sweet orange flesh of the PBJ, with a smaller size - we just don't need 10-16kg pumpkins any more! 

Can't wait to see what they look like in another few weeks!