Pumpkin plot

[CedarSwamp]

I want to experiment with planting pumpkins this spring in a food plot. Any advice?

We have quite a few 1/4 acre to almost 1/2 acre plots. I’d like to put pumpkins in a 1/4 acre plot.

My thoughts were planting a variety of pumpkins and squash to see how the deer eat each variety. I don’t know if anything will really bother the pumpkin plants as they grow? We can fence them in if it’s necessary to protect them for a while.

If anyone has some tips or tricks let me know.

 

[SwampCat]

I just throw a variety of punpkins out in the winter - whatever my wife buys for fall decoration. I try to bust them up to spread the seed. When the come up, I thin them and put some weed barrier around the plants I want to save. Nothing eats mine - not even the hogs.

 

[Catscratch]

Here's some of what I grew last yr. Deer don't bother them on my place during the growing season. After Halloween I throw them back into the plot and they eat them up.

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[JFK52]

I put in pumpkins many years ago in a 3-4 acre plot. What I learned is that weed control in the early stages is important. This allows the vines to spread out and develop flowers which turn into the pumpkins. The deer left the pumpkins alone until late November. Then they smashed them with their hooves and ate the insides and seeds. I did not feel that I got a good result in pounds of deer food produced per acres planted. I now go with brassicas for late season food sources.

 

[Semisane]

I too have planted pumpkins on small 1/4 acre plots. They produced well and have never been touched by deer. For the last few years I've been planting Butternut Squash with good results. No sign of deer eating them though rabbits and mice appear to scrape little divots in some of them. Next month I'm putting some Butternut, Acorn and Delicata on the plots, about a dozen of each scattered over three small plots. We eat a lot a squash in my house.

 

[swat1018]

I had rye that I rolled last year and drilled my beans into. It was a pretty good layer of rye. I then went back around the 4th of July and pushed a bunch of pumpkin seeds into the ground by hand near all of my stands/blinds. I planted roughly a 1/4 pound of seed. NE MO had a horrific drought last summer. I had .6 rain from the time I planted my beans until around end of August, when the skies opened up. I only had about 15 vines that survived, but they made about 75 large pumpkins. It was a great success, considering no fert, just sticking seeds in the ground during a drought. A deer never entered the plots that didn't end up at one of the pumpkin vines sooner or later. I had to smash a few pumpkins to get them started on them, after that, it was all over.

I'll be planting them around stand sites every year.

 

[swat1018]

Thanks for the reminder, just ordered a pound of seed.

 

[CedarSwamp]

I appreciate all the great input! I just frost seeded clover in that plot today. I’ll terminate spots in the clover to plant the pumpkins. I have four pumpkin varieties and a squash variety. It was rape and turnips last fall. We tend not to bow hunt near this plot much, but our best gun stand is near this plot and catches movement to and from the plot.

Thanks!

 

[Bluegill]

We grow 30+ acres of pumpkins and squash every year to sell. As others have said the deer won’t bother them while growing. Weed control is also a must. If you let them get weedy they will not produce well Fertilizer is another thing that can help you out a lot. They really like butternut squash especially after they freeze. From what I’ve seen I personally wouldn’t plant pumpkins as a food plot. If they aren’t taken proper care of and don’t produce well and you have a lot of deer they could clear a 1/4 in not much time. In my opinion i think there are other options that are a lot less maintenance

 

[Northbound]

Still waiting on R.R. pumpkins!

 

[swat1018]

Still waiting on R.R. pumpkins!

It was probably just dumb luck, but I didn't plant my pumpkins until July in hopes of having some left in season. By then, my rye was tall and when laid down made a thick mat of mulch. I planted the seed into it, and never had a weed problem.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I burned down a small ~1/4 acre with "heavy" gly in back pack sprayer

Came back a week later and used a dibble bar to seed with special care to plant 2-3 seeds per slot at 2 -3 in depth

i spaced them out at 15-20 feet

Fertilized with osmocote plus at green up

East Texas engineering............worked well!

bill

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I bought some pumpkin seed two weeks ago. I have never tried them before but plan on it this season. I just bought a few packs so its not going to be anything major but we'll see how they do .

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I save and dry the seeds from my kids Halloween pumpkins and use them to plant the next spring. I'll be planting 1/4 acre of pumpkins this spring for my kids and also the deer.

If you can weed and fertilize them the tonnage produced by pumpkins is hard to beat. In MN the deer seem to really hit them hard in late November through December.

 

[H20fwler]

We grow them for Fall/Halloween decorations. Started as more of an accidental thing when we threw some squash and pumpkins out along drive at orchard and just continue to do it...something eats on them in the winter I know the birds like them. The wife also gets a kick out of messing with them.

 

[swat1018]

Everytime I've planted saved pumpkin seeds I get some odd gourd/squash looking things. I can't get anything true to the seed. What is the issue?

 

[Catscratch]

Everytime I've planted saved pumpkin seeds I get some odd gourd/squash looking things. I can't get anything true to the seed. What is the issue?

I save seed from store bought pumpkins and they always grow true to parent (as close as you could expect anyway)... nice orange Halloween type pumpkins.

Anyone grow Atlantic Giants for deer? The kids grew some that were close to 200lbs two yrs ago. NOTHING touched them that winter and it took them forever to decompose.

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[RobertT]

I plant a couple vines every year just for halloween decorations. I have had deer just hammer the vines to the point there was no crop.

 

[CedarSwamp]

I save seed from store bought pumpkins and they always grow true to parent (as close as you could expect anyway)... nice orange Halloween type pumpkins.

Anyone grow Atlantic Giants for deer? The kids grew some that were close to 200lbs two yrs ago. NOTHING touched them that winter and it took them forever to decompose.

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We used to grow large pumpkins so we were able to get seeds from some 1,000# pumpkins. I’ll plant those, some Atlantic giants, a couple smaller pumpkin varieties and then some squash. It’ll be interesting to see what they prefer!

 

[SWIFFY]

Ive never tried them in a plot... but when we could feed deer here, id go through 3000 pounds of all types of pumpkins and gourds in the winter. My buddy was a produce dealer and gave me all the old bins of junk. The deer had no preference. When the snow fell, they devoured it all!