Permaculture Pumpkin Patch Ideas

I grew my first decent amount of pumpkins last year, about 8 “hills” allowed to sprawl alongside my driveway and up a slope. Keeping them weed-free was a major issue and I know I spent too much time chopping and dropping than was practical.

The modern ag solution is, or course, spraying things that Girbot would flag me for even mentioning 😊
What’s the Permie middle ground? They take up way more room than I have covered by cardboard/mulch in the food forest ,so lawn is the only option (and I only have a little Mantis tiller, which I’m trying to avoid.)  

I’m thinking about laying out a big old tarp and planting the hills around the outside. I’ll aim the vines towards the middle and keep folding/rolling the tarp up as the vines progress inwards. I’m hoping that will suppress and solarize the weeds as we grow into the season and the center of the tarped area. And my weeding will hopefully be reduced to the edges.
Are there any other Permie pumpkin patch solutions?

My solution is to plant pumpkins in two locations: in the cold compost pile and in the brush piles. Free mulch! In the compost pile it's easy to pull out a few big weeds, and in the brush pile they climb up to the top and cover everything else rather than being out-shaded by tall plants.

You could select for varieties that shade out the grass better.  Or ones that climb and then locate them near things they can climb on.

My suggestion would be to get a load of wood chips for a 6' layer.

Next would be to train the pumpkins to grow on a trellis.

There's a method I'm testing this year, so I don't know yet how well it will work. Basically you carpet the area with seeds for something low-growing that either won't hamper the pumpkins, or better yet will help them. The short stuff helps crowd out weeds, but the pumpkin plant is tall enough to grow over them. You may need to cut or pull weeds at first, but the short crop makes it harder for the weeds to grow back every time, until the weeds just can't get through anymore.

At least, that's the theory. I tried this last year, but chose the wrong plants. In previous years when I planted chia, it never got more than a few inches tall, so I thought it would be great for this. Naturally that was when the chia decided to grow 5 feet tall.

I have a few different short crops, and plan to match them with whatever big crops I think they'll grow best with. Dwarf marigolds do well with anything except tomatoes. (Technically they do well with tomatoes, but the blossoms look a lot like fruit from a distance, and you'll end up driving yourself crazy looking for the actual tomatoes.) Dwarf basil in the tomato patch. Chia can grow in the sunflower patch, those are tall enough not to care. Beans and potatoes grow dense enough not to need a weed-control crop. Over in the perennials I'm planting oregano and creeping thyme under some berry bushes.

Again, this is still in the experimental stages. But, if you'd like to see if it works for you, I'd be curious to hear your results :)

Previous years I have just let the pumpkins go over the grass. A bit of a mess to clean up at the end of the season though. This year I have contained them by looping the vine back over itself within the garden. It has also decided to climb the neighbours mock orange hedge.  

I have recently learnt that what we here in Australia call a kent pumpkin is called a squash in USA.

In past years, I've planted pumpkins and winter squash in my raised bed garden. I don't think that's a good use of that area. This year I covered a fairly large area with cardboard and dumped about 50 - 50 gallon grow bags worth of soil over that area. That's going to be my main pumpkin/winter squash area. Honestly, I've been looking at companion plants that can partially shade the squash plants, our summer sun/heat is brutal. I'm thinking mainly ornamentals like cosmos, sunflowers and coreopsis. I will let you know how that goes.

Based on my positive experience last year, here's what I did.
1. Dug a circular trench
2. Spread dehydrated chicken manure and last years pumpkins
3. Chopped up the pumpkins (little ones got some extra flesh without seeds from the big ones for compost)
4. Raked the dirt back over

Yes, it's only March. But that's a good thing. Time for the flesh to break down and become compost. The seeds won't germinate until the soil is warm enough AND any that get frost killed don't matter. Pumpkins are smart enough to stagger their seed germination so more will come up later.

The circle will let me water, thin, and otherwise care for the pumpkins in one place while the plants grow out all around and occupy the lawn.

My raised beds keep getting swamped with pumpkins vines to the detriment of anything within a twenty foot radius of the plants. I've tried trellising with okay results but still struggling with stray vines.

I'm at the point where I'm going to plant the pumpkins on some underutilized land (hillside) and I am going to make holes in the ground and fill them with rich soil. They can sprawl all they want and the sun will draw them down the hillside. At least that is the theory.

You may have to weaken the weeds on a given site before planting pumpkins there again. Keep in mind every plant fits into the ecosystem and fulfills a certain role. So you may want to grow some pioneer trees in the area first to shade out and weaken the weed layer. Pumpkins seems to be designed to grow on the margins of sites and collect any over abundance of nutrients.  Growing them on compost of manure piles for example seems to work well. I don't weed my Pumpkins much but instead plant them into sites where land has been recently cleared etc. Using grass clippings as mulch in-between plants can also smoother weeds though that can create a slippy carpet of rotten grass. Last idea I would suggest is to save your own pumpkin  seeds from plants that grew on your site. They will adapt gradually to your garden.

Stacy Witscher wrote:In past years, I've planted pumpkins and winter squash in my raised bed garden. I don't think that's a good use of that area. This year I covered a fairly large area with cardboard and dumped about 50 - 50 gallon grow bags worth of soil over that area. That's going to be my main pumpkin/winter squash area. Honestly, I've been looking at companion plants that can partially shade the squash plants, our summer sun/heat is brutal. I'm thinking mainly ornamentals like cosmos, sunflowers and coreopsis. I will let you know how that goes.

I think the ideal would be to have something like fruit trees growing on a site with pumpkins underneath. This is my long term plan. I will allow the pumpkins to climb through the trees if they want.

It looks like a magic pumpkin fairy circle. How did it work out?

Felicia Browell II wrote:It looks like a magic pumpkin fairy circle. How did it work out?

In one word: AWFUL! The planting was sound and the vines were off to the races BUT since I had grown pumpkins nearby in the previous two years, the pests were ready and waiting. Mostly squash vine borers and squash bugs. That whole debacle lead to me seeking out species that are immune to these issues and this thread: https://permies.com/t/209829/Squash-Selection-Avoid-Common-Issues

I’ve been very interested in this topic for a while. I’m located in North Carolina in the US and I’ve always had such bad fortune with pumpkins and squash. The hot, humid summers seem to breed pests that love this crop. Last year I decided to try something different so I choose an open field on my property and I dumped a pile of leaves that was about 1.5 feet deep over an area that was about 2000 square feet. I left that there through the summer and winter. In the spring, I used a rake to pull back the leaves of an area about 300 square feet and planted corn there and added compost to supply more nutrients. I also pulled back the leaves in small circles about 2-3 feet in diameter and made a mound of compost there at each cleared circle and transplanted pumpkins and squash into the mounds. The mounds were spaced about 5 feet apart. As the transplants grew I pulled the leaves back in around the plants and covered the mounded soil.
All of this, along with being more deliberate about the types of pumpkin/squash I’m growing, has made a big difference based on what I’m seeing so far. It could also be a small assist attributable to my guineas roaming and eating some of the pests. The plants are much healthier and the leaf mulch keeping down the grasses and other undesirable plants.

Lois Green wrote:I have recently learnt that what we here in Australia call a kent pumpkin is called a squash in USA.

I looked up your Kent pumpkin, which you also call a Japanease pumpkin.  Based on the photos, yes, it looks like an exact match for the Japanese cultivar we call a Kabocha squash.

So, in the US we distinguish between "summer squashes," "zucchini," "winter squashes," and "pumpkins."  But as always when dealing with common names for plants, there is a maddening degree of vagary, overlap, and contradiction.  Summer squashes are generally not sweet, and the current fashion is to pick them young for fresh eating while their seeds are still soft and their skins still thin (this has not always been the case).  They don't store well.  Based on their color and shape and perhaps on their region of origin, some summer squash cultivars we instead call by the Italian name zucchini, though they are cooked interchangeably with other summer squash.

Some varieties commonly grown as summer squash are actually just the immature fruits of winter squash.  Winter squash are grown for storage, have thicker skins, hard seeds, denser flesh, and are often sweet tasting.  Whereas summer squash appear raw in some recipes and uses, I'm not aware of anything at all to do with raw winter squash; they are always cooked.  While the seeds of winter squash are too hard to eat along with the squash, they are cooked and eaten separately.

And then some winter squash vareities, for no reason other than their color and/or shape, we traditionally call pumpkins.  Pumpkins are advertised distinctly as such in the marketplace and, while there is no botanical distinction whatsoever between them and other varieties of winter squash, I dont' know how many American consumers recognize this fact.

I'd be curious to know how all this compares to the conventions in Australia or other parts of the anglophone world.

Chris Merritt wrote:I’ve been very interested in this topic for a while. I’m located in North Carolina in the US and I’ve always had such bad fortune with pumpkins and squash. The hot, humid summers seem to breed pests that love this crop. Last year I decided to try something different so I choose an open field on my property and I dumped a pile of leaves that was about 1.5 feet deep over an area that was about 2000 square feet. I left that there through the summer and winter. In the spring, I used a rake to pull back the leaves of an area about 300 square feet and planted corn there and added compost to supply more nutrients. I also pulled back the leaves in small circles about 2-3 feet in diameter and made a mound of compost there at each cleared circle and transplanted pumpkins and squash into the mounds. The mounds were spaced about 5 feet apart. As the transplants grew I pulled the leaves back in around the plants and covered the mounded soil.
All of this, along with being more deliberate about the types of pumpkin/squash I’m growing, has made a big difference based on what I’m seeing so far. It could also be a small assist attributable to my guineas roaming and eating some of the pests. The plants are much healthier and the leaf mulch keeping down the grasses and other undesirable plants.

That sounds like a good procedure.  Be sure to update this thread when it comes harvest time!

I had an accidental success with pumpkins using sheet mulch. In fall I started to revive an old garden by adding a large swath of card board over food scraps placed over the old dried out garden bed and added stick mulch over the top (3x30 ft or so). In Spring there were volunteer squash plants sprouting from the edge of the sheet mulch. The roots fanned out through the season while being protected by the sheet and stick mulch. That squash was so productive I ate squash about everyday into the next year. I took this on as an intended method the next season, placing pumpkins at the edge of sheet mulch. Very productive healthy plants that seem to need less watering!

Timothy Norton wrote:My raised beds keep getting swamped with pumpkins vines to the detriment of anything within a twenty foot radius of the plants. I've tried trellising with okay results but still struggling with stray vines.

I'm at the point where I'm going to plant the pumpkins on some underutilized land (hillside) and I am going to make holes in the ground and fill them with rich soil. They can sprawl all they want and the sun will draw them down the hillside. At least that is the theory.

This sounds lie a great plan.

I was also going to suggest trimming the vines to a reasonable length.

Chris Merritt wrote:I’ve been very interested in this topic for a while. I’m located in North Carolina in the US and I’ve always had such bad fortune with pumpkins and squash. The hot, humid summers seem to breed pests that love this crop.
...
All of this, along with being more deliberate about the types of pumpkin/squash I’m growing, has made a big difference based on what I’m seeing so far. It could also be a small assist attributable to my guineas roaming and eating some of the pests. The plants are much healthier and the leaf mulch keeping down the grasses and other undesirable plants.

Hi Chris. I'm in NC too. I wanted to do a pumpkin patch this fall, actually hoping and praying that those would provide some cash flow from the farm. But the opportunity passed because I had to wait for others to come with bigger equipment, or had to wait to get additional implements for my own little tractor, or wait for rain, or for the rain to stop ... so ... no pumpkins this year. Shifting to basils, potatoes, beans, and maybe late zucchinis. If this round of rain stops long enough!

This is my second full year living on my land, although I am not yet living off the land. I'm a slow learner, apparently. Or maybe I thought I was more capable than I turned out to be in real life! I have big plans, still, so ... pumpkins next year on at least part of the land. This fall I'll be planting blackberries, raspberries, and more blueberries, and I'm hoping to get the chestnut trees planted this fall. Seems like I'm more focused on the long run orchard plantings, rather than the short-run crops. Going to try to be more balanced going forward.

Felicia Browell II wrote:Hi Chris. I'm in NC too. I wanted to do a pumpkin patch this fall, actually hoping and praying that those would provide some cash flow from the farm. But the opportunity passed because I had to wait for others to come with bigger equipment, or had to wait to get additional implements for my own little tractor, or wait for rain, or for the rain to stop ... so ... no pumpkins this year. Shifting to basils, potatoes, beans, and maybe late zucchinis. If this round of rain stops long enough!

This is my second full year living on my land, although I am not yet living off the land. I'm a slow learner, apparently. Or maybe I thought I was more capable than I turned out to be in real life! I have big plans, still, so ... pumpkins next year on at least part of the land. This fall I'll be planting blackberries, raspberries, and more blueberries, and I'm hoping to get the chestnut trees planted this fall. Seems like I'm more focused on the long run orchard plantings, rather than the short-run crops. Going to try to be more balanced going forward.

Hi Felicia - Thats tough luck with the pumpkin patch, maybe next year. You know I totally understand about the rain, I think it’s been flood and drought for everyone in the state. The drought seems to finally be easing up for some of us.

I’ve been living on my property for only a little bit longer than you, 5 years. During this short time, I’ve learned that it’s more important to be flexible when you’re living off your land because there are always failures every year but there are also unexpected successes. Don’t be so hard on yourself, we all fail. Berries are a good choice for this area.  Since you’re in NC, there’s a good chance that there are blackberries that are growing all around you, they’re just going to be very thorny. Do you ever forage out there? Also, permies is all about the long term perennial crops, so you’re on the right site.

To bring it back to the topic, I was out in the pumpkin patch just a bit ago and I snapped a picture. It’s not a great picture but it shows a bit of what is happening. For reference, the tallest corn in the picture is 20+ feet tall. There are some bare patches that just have  mulch and there are a few weeds here and there but I’ve never watered nor weeded this patch at all.