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. 

This is the time of year of rampant growth, flourishing critter populations (for better or worse), and lots of harvesting. A month ago I posted pics of my garden - the difference between those and these pics is amazing!

The pumpkin/zucchini/watermelon patch which was tiny a month ago is now a veritable sea of green, with lots of flowers and small developing fruits. On Jan 24th, I extended the area by adding carpets that we removed from our house and some extra black plastic in one corner, to keep down/kill off more grass and weeds, to give me a bigger area to develop into new gardens after the squash etc are finished. The plants have almost entirely covered all that as well as their original patch.

Clearly, I was overly optimistic when I planned to keep the two rows of pumpkins turned away from the row of watermelon and zucchini in the middle! Still working on it, but it's getting harder and harder to get in there to do so. 

The three zucchini plants in this patch are now huge, and have started producing. I picked this washing basketful yesterday from them and the two plants in my greenhouse. I gave some away, kept some for fresh eating, and dried the rest to make zucchini flour - more on that in another post.

In the last few days I've gotten nets up on my Damson plum (which will be ready to harvest soon) and over my grapevine (after giving it a summer prune), to protect the crops from the birds. After these photos were taken, I also netted my dwarf double pear tree. I do have another grapevine I leave unnetted, so the birds are welcome to feed from that - but they're supposed to stay away from my covered ones! Every year there are some Houdini's that get in, so we'll see how we go this time.

This garden bed has flowers at one end, a self-sown choko on the edge of the middle section which has some shallots to harvest and then I'm going to give a make-over to, and marshmellow with beetroot and kohl rabi at the other. The pots have some potatoes that I just want to keep perpetuating for now. 

In this half of my greenhouse I've weedeatered, laid down cardboard, covered it in a couple of inches of compost, and topped off with woodchip from our trees that were pruned last winter, then watered it. I'm just going to let that sit for a while. The zucchini in the corner was already there - it was looking quite pale-leafed and sad compared to it's neighbour; I was tempted to pull it out but decided to lift it a wee bit, put down the compost etc, not under or around it per se (as the compost was very fresh and not safe to put on plants yet), but up to the edge of it's outer leaves. Within a few days it perked right up and the leaves have darkened to where it looks like the healthy one next to it, and is once again producing well. On the right, is a choko in a pot which is growing up a trellis that extends across the roof. I haven't grown one indoors before - it's partly an experiment to see how much I can extend it's season (outdoors they are killed off by the first decent frost). 

Russian Red tomato - less vigorous than the Moneymaker I usually grow, I have not taken off laterals etc, just lifted and loosely tied those that start to sprawl in my way. Have been steadily picking off it for the last month. 

A couple of weeks ago I sowed a lot of seed - lots are coming up. A few aren't though - either it's too hot in the greenhouse for them, or I need to ditch some of my older seed and get fresh. Top shelf is all plants started from cuttings which I need to plant out, plus two apple cucumbers a friend found for me after I mentioned I was looking for another cucumber seedling to plant. 

Out to my front garden now. These Russian Silvery Fir tomatoes were planted as small seedlings on 1st Jan, under micromesh. They're doing wonderfully, as are the leaf lettuces planted along both sides (there's parsley hidden down the middle, but it's completely overshadowed now). Lettuces planted in a neighbouring bed, partly shaded but without mesh, are struggling considerably compared to those under the mesh. We, like much of the country, had a week of extremely high winds and storms; these tomatoes can be quite fussy and delicate, but they took the storms completely in their stride, thanks to the mesh. It's the only way I grow this variety now.

My broccoli is still steadily producing lots of side shoots (pic taken just after I'd done another picking). In all honesty, I'm suffering from what one might call "broccoli fatigue"  - I just don't feel much like eating it any more so am giving most of it away (also have plenty in the freezer). I may pull the plants out soon, but I don't need the space just yet for anything else, and they're providing for others, along with the kale, so they can continue for a while. White butterfly are around now, but not causing any more than minor issues - the rampant nasturtium I have elsewhere keeps them somewhat distracted, and the predatory insects I encourage keep them mostly under control, assisted by birds which I often see hopping around under the plants picking off any bugs.

Now this bed is empty of garlic, I plan to remove it, spread the compost in it out, and add a couple new rows of beds in here, no dig style. This end of the front garden is the only part that gets enough sun in winter for crops - where the kale and brocc is in the next space gets partial sun, and the rest of it is nearly fully shaded. So I'm planning to plant some winter crops in what will be the new beds here.

None of the beans I sowed along the trellis came up, but the corn seedlings I popped in behind are going strong, as are the marigolds I put along the front. A few volunteer radishes need picking too. Behind it is a weedy area that I'm leaving for now, as the flowers and things there are attracting various beneficial critters. 

This end bed is doing fine, with a mix of celery, leaf lettuce, spring onions, broccoli and perpetual spinach.

I want to get back into composting on as large a scale as I can manage. I had one of those tall, square plastic compost bins given to us, with three layers inside. Frustrating thing. So I pulled it apart and laid it's sides on their edges, with a little help form some rebar stakes, to create this temporary bin to get started with. Ultimately I want twice that depth, and about four times the surface area in various bins, likely made out of pallets once I acquire some new ones, or similar.

There has also been quite a lot of preserving to do this past month; I bottled apple with a light honey solution, made this batch of Harvest Sauce, did a big batch of pasta sauce, and when I took some kale to my neighbour's chickens, she sent me home with an armload of cucumbers, so I could do some of my favourite pickles.

It's been a month of extremes - from wind storms to cool 4.9C nights, to 31 degrees-in-the-shade days. I'm just hoping the "summer" lasts long enough for me to have mature pumpkins and Silvery Fir tomatoes! 

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!