- The fairy veggie godmother told me if I don't get this video
out by midnight tonight I'll turn it into a- G'day, I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me and in this video, I'm going
to give you my five top tips on how to grow a ton of pumpkins. Let's get into it. (gentle piano music) Speaking about turning into a pumpkin I've grown and eaten so many
of these in the past 12 months. And I'm beginning to think it's possible. Pumpkins a part of the cucurbit family. Which includes cucumbers,
zucchini, button squash watermelon, and even gourds. In fact, there are over
1,000 different varieties that you can grow and
explore in your own backyard. Tip number one, space. Most pumpkins grow on a vine that is always branching and expanding. So if you really do want to grow a ton of pumpkins at your place you need space There's one here, and
another good one here. Pumpkins are like toddlers. They wander around everywhere. So, unless you cage them like on a trellis, they
will get out of control. And to some extent, unlike toddlers you want your pumpkin vine
to get a bit out of control because often, this leads
to the vine rooting down in multiple places,
drawing water and nutrients from a larger area, making
the overall vine stronger and converting this
energy into more flowers and subsequently, fruit. I started this pumpkin
vine in June last year. That's right, over 12 months ago. And all I did was, like just planted a clump of seedlings that i grew in a pot right
here, in this corner. And from there, it took over the back of our vegetable garden. Most pumpkins are easy to grow and they readily strike from seed either directly in a garden
bed or in a container. Just cover with soil or
potting mix, keep damp and they should pop up in about a week. Growing your pumpkins on a trellis like this (indistinct) trellis can give you some control over the plants. But it also has several other advantages. Such as saving space, looks nice keeps fruit off the ground,
which helps stop rot and can limit damage from certain
pests, slinging the fruit. Especially the larger ones,
can prevent fruit fall and breakage. And one more
thing, if you do grow them over a meshed tunnel trellis like this. Just make sure you watch
that the developing fruit doesn't wedge between the grate. Now how am I going to get this out? There must be a way,
there must be an easy way. No, too small. I don't want to put a hole in the mesh. Too noisy. Let's try this. (saw buzzing) It's a nice color. I should be able to just push
this together and get it out. Maybe not. (saw buzzing) What a catch! (indistinct) Yes! (saw buzzing) Come on. Yes. What a beautiful looking pumpkin. That'll be dinner tonight. You can call it trellis ripened. Tip number two, variety. The variety of pumpkin
is very important because not all pumpkins are grown for eating. Some are grown for size
to win competitions. Others are grown for their
ornamental value, which is fine. But if you do want to feed
off home grown pumpkins. Choose a variety known
for its eating quality. There are lots of good and weird varieties of pumpkins to try. And, I encourage you to try as many of them as you can because they all have
different traits and flavors. However, there are certain
pumpkin (indistinct) varieties that not only taste great but that also easier to grow than others. And if the aim is to grow a
ton of nice tasting pumpkins. You should seek out these types. Some examples, off the top
of my head are Jap or Kent. Which is this variety here,
Butternut and Queensland blue. But that's just three of the easiest and best tasting ones I know. Do you have any recommendations
that you can write in the comments section, so
that we can all read them and then try to grow them in the future? Tip number three, pests and disease. I've got a couple of pumpkins
here that are lined up for the chickens and ducks because they just simply, aren't
good enough for the table. And that doesn't worry me. That makes really good
eggs, easy to grow varieties usually have good pest
and disease resistance. But like most food crops, if
your pumpkins become target for birds and perhaps rodents you can try netting or
harvesting the ripe fruit as soon as possible. And leaving them to cure in a safe area. Fruit fly is a particularly
nasty pest in this area. This pumpkin wasn't damaged by fruit fly. But they can be relentless
in stinging the pumpkins over and over in the one spot until the larva finally
gets through the tough skin. Well, I've had better success obviously, with growing the
thicker skinned pumpkins and also, through our subtropical winter when the fruit fly are less active. The vine itself can suffer from
the standard powdery mildew. Which causes premature
die back of the leaves. You can get organic
sprays to help curb it. I tend not to worry about it. And if your plant is
getting enough nutrients water and ground at the right time it should regenerate new foliage. Tip number four, fertilizer and watering. Honestly, I never consciously watered or fed this meandering pumpkin vine because I was scared, that if I did it might go out of control
and grow like a Triffid and take over the whole neighborhood. Realistically pumpkins
do like fertile soil plenty of rich compost and
the odd feed of fertilizer throughout the growing
season, to give it the energy to produce a good crop
and being a large vine with lush leaves and big fruits it should be watered regularly. Certainly, if you see the healthy leaves drooping through the day,
give the plant a good drink. The reason our vine has done so well like I said before, is because
it was allowed to roam around this back area and set
roots all over the place to find nutrients and
water it needed naturally. Now I can't get rid of it. Tip number five, harvesting and storage. Doesn't this look beautiful? You know we must have got at least 60 to 100 pumpkins from this one vine or cluster of vines planted
in that one position that just sprawled all
out over the backyard over this last 12 months. But whether you grow in a climate that you have a perpetual pumpkin vine. Or if you're in a maybe cooler area where your season is very strict like through summer and then come winter the vine dies off and then
you harvest the fruit. The same principles still apply. Remember my video on tapping
a pumpkin to see if it's ripe? Instead of tapping, what you do is you rub the pumpkin like Aladdin's lamp and if Cinderella appears,
well then you know the pumpkin is ready to be picked. (indistinct) If you haven't seen it,
you might want to watch it because I go into more depth
on when to harvest a pumpkin. Pumpkins are ready for harvesting when they get to a certain
size for that variety. They might change color slightly or come away from the stem easily or indeed, the whole vine
might die back completely depending on your climate. If you have decent conditions,
you can leave pumpkins out in the environment to
cure for several weeks. Like I've done here. Or you can collect them and
store them in a cool dry area like a shed to cure, before
storing the best ones in a big pantry or storage area. Any fruits that are blemished or cracked should be eaten first, and or preserved through cooking and canning
or freezing, et cetera. We'll I've got about 10 hours
left before I turn into the proverbial pumpkin. So I
better get pump-kining. Pumping, pumpkin-inking,
but you know what I mean. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, make sure you don't be Jack and you give it a big spicy, pumpkin latte thumbs up and also, scare the video. I mean, share the video around because that helps my channel out heaps. Thanks a lot for watching, bye for now! Don't forget to subscribe. I'm now a pumpkin.
