How To Grow Giant Pumpkins

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Thinking About Growing Giant Pumpkins?

It seems like nearly every year the World Record is broken for the largest pumpkin.

Do you want to learn how to grow a giant pumpkin like these these huge Atlantic Giant pumpkins, yourself?

Maybe it will be you who grows the newest World Record Giant Pumpkin? Follow this easy guide to grow an Atlantic Giant, the most common World Record breaking pumpkin variety, and hopefully you can be entered into the record books next year!

Get Inspired By These Huge Pumpkins!

Atlantic Giant Pumpkins

What an incredible photo of a whole filed og giant pumpkins. Does this help to get your enthusiasm flowing?

Giant Pumpkin Patch Video

Time Lapse Video of A Giant Pumpkin garden over 7 months

How To Grow A Giant Pumpkin

Giant Pumpkin Growing Kit

Possibly the easiest way to get starting with growing these giants, is to use a pre-prepared kit. Here is a good one. The Giant Pumpkin Kit from Xtreme Gardening contains everything you need to grow your own World-Class Giant Pumpkin.

This Limited Edition Introductory Kit contains three Xtreme Gardening products commonly used by the top growers in the United States and abroad, including MYKOS, a beneficial microbe that has helped grow the Worlds Record-Breaking Champions for Five Consecutive Year as well as several state records and a new Canadian record.

The kit also contains Don Langevin’s excellent book on “How to Grow Organic Giant Pumpkins”. Competitive gardening is all about growing plants on an organic platform. To achieve this type of growth, you will need to turn in your powdered chemicals and get ready to pour on the compost and organic fertilizers. Don’s book thoroughly walks new growers through all of the necessary details from laying out the “patch” to “lifting” your giant pumpkin out of the garden.

The final important part of this kit are (of course) the seeds. Therefore, 4 super seeds provided by some of the top growers and these are are packed full of potential to deliver a fruit of over 1000lbs – and maybe even the next world record.

RTI Xtreme Gardening 6503 Giant Pumpkin Growing Kit
Includes 4 seeds with the potential to produce a giant pumpkin
Includes the book &#39how to grow world class pumpkins the all organic way&#39 by don langevin
Includes mykos a pure mycorrhizal inoculant
Includes CalCarb, a calcium carbonate foliar spray
Includes azos, a nitrogen fixing bacteria

Select A Growing Site For Your Pumpkins

This is the first and most important step. Giant pumpkins need full sunshine to promote photosynthesis and to help keep healthy leaves. Full sunshine will keep the leaves dryer and will help prevent disease caused by the morning dew that will be on the leaves.

Also, giant pumpkins have giant appetites, so make sure you are close to a water source.

Prepare Your Soil For Sowing Pumpkin Seeds

This is the most crucial step of growing a record breaking, really huge pumpkin. Don’t wait until spring to start this step. After finding the perfect site to grow your giant pumpkin, place fresh manure, compost and leaves in a large dugout area where you will be planting the pumpkin seeds.

Do this in the fall and till this area to help break down the manure and compost that you placed there. Your target pH is 6.5 but a range of 5.5 to 7.5 will be fine also.

In the spring you should add a fertilizer high in nitrogen, some dry manure, and compost. Work this into the soil to help feed your giant pumpkin!

Giant Pumpkin Fertilizer and Supplies

Supplies Needed For Giant Pumpkin Growing

Giant Pumpkin growing requires a little bit of input in the way of special food and nutrients. Here are some good fertilizers and supplies to help your pumpkins grow to be massive.

Unlimited Renewables Organic Fertilizer – Quantity 4
Chicken Poop fertilizer is possibly the best fertilizer you can use.

Good Ideas Compost Wizard Starter Kit
Making your own compost is a great way to provide organic nutrients for your plants, while saving a useful resource.
7 cubic foot capacity – 100% Recycled Material – BPA Free
Includes Compost Wizard Jr, 2 accelerator pouches, 2 compost fiber bricks, 1 compost pail
Fully Assembled-Low maintenance
Safe for pets and children
Made in the USA with FDA approved materials
7 cubic foot capacity

When To Plant Giant Pumpkin Seeds?

Start Your Giant Pumpkin Seeds Early

The ultimate harvest time for your Atlantic Giant pumpkin should be late September to early October so they can be presented at events to be judged.

Atlantic Giant pumpkins need 150 or more days to grow and mature to World Record weights. Start the seeds indoors in late April or early May to achieve the maximum growth time. Plant at your selected site after the last frost.

Frost will kill your Giant Atlantic pumpkin plant, so make sure to protect them if a late frost is predicted.

Giant Pumpkin Seeds For Sale

Once you have decided on which type of pumpkin you want to grow, then it is time to get yourself some seeds.Here is some giant pumpkin seeds for sale on Amazon

Pumpkin Giant Dill”s Atlantic D602A (Orange) 10 Seeds by David”s Garden Seeds
Pumpkin Dills Atlantic Giant 15 Seeds
10 Seeds Pumpkin "DILL”S ATLANTIC GIANT" (Cucurbita maxima) Seeds By Seed Needs

Grow Pumpkin … Grow!

Now your giant pumpkin needs time to just grow
Now that you have an established pumpkin plant, it is time to let it grow. Ensure that it has plenty of water and nutrients to grow.

As the fruits mature, you will have a choice to make. You need to choose the most promising pumpkin on the plant and remove all of the others. This will allow the plant to fully feed the one pumpkin for maximum, gigantic growth.

Become familiar with the diseases and insects that may harm your pumpkin plant and take the correct plan of action to get rid of them. Also as the pumpkin gets larger you will want to protect it from the sun to prevent the skin from splitting.

Protect Your Giant Pumpkins!

Don’t leave your future winning pumpkin exposed to the elements! Provide some sort of canopy to keep it covered and protected from bad weather such as hard, heavy rain, hot sunshine etc.

Just make sure that whatever shelter you use, will be large enough to cover your giant when it is no longer a baby!

NuVue Products Frost Cover 28-Inch
Wenzel Smartshade Canopy White 10 X 10-Feet
Tierra Garden Haxnicks Easy Fleece Tunnel Giant

Books on How To Grow Giant Pumpkins

This is a great selection of books, full of tips and trick on how to get your pumpkin to have maximum growth.

How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins The Classic Book on Growing Giant Pumpkins
How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins II Sequel to the Classic Book on Growing Giant Pumpkins

How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins III
How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins The All-Organic Way

Harvest Your Giant Pumpkin

This is what it is all about. Time to pick your prize giant pumpkin and receive all of the deserved accolades and awards!

Remember – Aa giant pumpkin is huge and heavy! Make sure you have the proper equipment to pick up and transport your pumpkin to your selected event! You’ll probably need a forklift.

If you have managed to produce a World Record giant pumpkin, you can charge a premium price for the seeds due to the genetics in the seeds alone. So be sure to save your seeds after the contests.