The world record for the largest pumpkin ever was set in 2023 with a specimen that weighed in at more than 2,700 pounds. And the competition continues every season to raise the most massive of the orange squash. To reach those sizes, growers lavish their fruit with daily attention and they use smart strategies gleaned from years of experience. Even if you have never raised a pumpkin before, you can get in on the fun of growing a behemoth in your garden, and you might even get started on the journey of going for the record yourself!
Here you’ll find the information you need to begin. Before you get started, you might want to know that pumpkins are the seed-bearing products of pollination, so they are technically fruit rather than vegetables.
Pumpkin Varieties
Pumpkins are a type of winter squash that come in many shapes and sizes, from palm-sized to gargantuan, smooth-skinned or warty, and rounded, flattened, or oblong. Serious competitors often grow Atlantic Giant, an heirloom that has been grown to record-setting sizes. First Prize Hybrid is a more reliable performer that produces pumpkins reaching up to 300 pounds.
Pumpkin Planting
To maximize the growing season for your crop of huge pumpkins, start the seeds indoors about three to four weeks before the average last frost date in your area. Biodegradable Plantable Round Fiber Pots are easy to use and just the right size for starting pumpkin seeds. When the seedlings have four or five leaves, and the overnight temperatures are consistently warmer than 65 degrees F, you can transplant them outdoors.
Pumpkins need full sun throughout the growing season to reach their mature size. The vines also need a lot of water, but they will rot in chronically wet soil. Experienced growers typically mound up soil about 4 to 6 inches to create small hills that quickly shed excess rainfall. Leave 15 to 20 feet between each hill so the vines can spread out. A 300-pound pumpkin needs about 100 leaves to support its growth, so the plant must continue growing further and further as the season goes on.
Amend the soil where you will plant your pumpkins with compost (homemade or bagged) to ensure it is loose enough for the roots to spread and for moisture to drain through. Compost also supplies essential nutrients to the plants as they take root and begin growing.
Pumpkin Care, Watering, and Feeding
When you first plant your pumpkin seedlings, consider protecting them from insect and mammal pests, and harsh weather conditions with a floating row cover, a light woven fabric that allows sunlight, air, and water to reach the plants but blocks out everything else.
As your huge pumpkins grow, they need a steady supply of water. Competitive growers give the maturing plants and fruit from 15 to 20 gallons of water each week, though you may need less. Check if the soil is dry or damp a few inches down by pushing in your index finger. When the plants need water, pour it directly onto the hill where the roots are, not on the leaves. If you have sandy soil, you will need to water more frequently than gardeners with clay-dominant soil.
Pumpkins are naturally rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, essential nutrients for plant growth. But to grow a huge pumpkin, you still have to fertilize the plants during the growing season. When the vines are beginning to spread, you can use a high-nitrogen source such as blood meal, which supports leaf and vine growth. Once flowering begins, switch to a more balanced formula, such as Burpee’s Natural Organic All-Purpose Granular Plant Food. Follow the package instructions for these products carefully—overfeeding doesn’t not cause the plant to grow bigger faster and can result in unhealthy growth.
Weeds siphon essential water and nutrients away from the plants, so you want to be sure to keep your pumpkin patch as clear as possible. A layer of natural mulch helps to prevent weeds from sprouting up and helps to retain moisture.
Like most members of the squash family, pumpkin plants produce male and female flowers, which typically appear in early July. The male flowers bloom first, followed by the females. They look similar but the females will soon swell at their base with a pumpkin forming.
When each plant has set a few softball-size fruits, you must make a critical choice if you want a huge pumpkin. Select one or two of the fruits on each vine that look the most robust and remove all the others. This focuses all the plants’ energy and resources into those fruit, helping them to put on size and weight. Remove new flowers and side shoots to keep them from diverting resources away from the developing fruit.
Problem Solving For Pumpkin Growing
The most common pests of pumpkins and their kin are cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and squash vine borers. Cucumber beetles and squash bugs suck plant juices and spread bacterial wilt, a disease that can cause plants to die suddenly. Covering your transplants with floating row cover keeps those two pests from moving in as the plants begin growing. Remove the row cover when the female flowers appear to allow insects to pollinate them.
As you can guess from their name, squash vine borers get into the vines and hollow them out. Borers typically attack within 6 inches of the where the plants emerge from the soil. They move in as adult moths and lay tiny, flat brown eggs, which hatch into larvae that are white or cream-colored with brown heads, and about an inch long. The larvae do the damage to your pumpkin vines. When you look at a wilting plant closely, you may notice holes near the base of the plant that are filled with moist greenish or orange sawdust-like material called frass. Silver Mulch obstruct the pests from moving in, while reflecting valuable sunlight back on to the plants.
Adult squash vine borers spend the winter in the soil near their host plants, so try not to plant cucurbit family crops in the same place in your garden each year. Also, be sure to remove dead vines and other debris from your garden at the end of the growing cycle to decrease the likelihood that the pests can survive the winter. During the growing season, look for and remove the egg clusters to reduce the pests’ population.
Pumkpin Harvesting
How long does it take for a pumpkin to grow? With the large varieties, the fruit will mature about 120 days after you transplant it outside. However, it will continue to grow and bulk up after that. You can leave it on the vine through the early fall but be sure to pick it before the first frost, which may damage the fruit.
When you’re raising a pumpkin that’s heavier than you can lift, think about how you will manage it when harvest time arrives. One trick is to gently lift the pumpkin before it gets too heavy with the vine still attached and place it into a wheelbarrow. The fruit will continue adding weight while in the wheelbarrow and you can roll it away when it’s ready.
Before the first frost or when your huge pumpkin has stopped adding weight, harvest time has come. The rind should be so firm that you won’t be able to penetrate it with your fingernail. Huge pumpkins tend to have very thick stems that are hard to cut. Clip yours from the vine with garden loppers or even a pruning saw. If you plan to store your pumpkins to eat over the winter, set them in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight to “cure” for a couple weeks before placing them in their long-term spot.