Without a doubt, planting pumpkins in the spring is an exciting time. In addition to bringing the joys of gardening, the seeds bear the promise of huge, orange pumpkins to adorn your front porch in the Fall.
Pumpkins require a long growing season. As a result, it may make sense to start your pumpkin plants indoors. If you have a short growing season, or the spring weather is cool and/or rainy, you may find sprouting pumpkin seeds indoors is the best way to get your plants off to a good start.
Find the seed starting dates for the pumpkin varieties you are growing. See Seed Starting Dates.
Let’s explore whether an indoor or an outdoor seed start makes the best sense for you………..
By far, the biggest reason favoring an outdoor start is that seeds planted directly into the garden avoid the potential of transplant shock.
A long growing season, with sufficient time to grow pumpkins to maturity, makes outdoor planting feasible.
It’s also the easiest way to plant them, as transplanting is an extra step.
If you are growing a lot of pumpkins, it becomes impractical to start your plants indoors and transplant them later.
Seeds grown out in the full sun of your garden get the maximum sunlight possible. Insufficient lighting is often a problem with indoor plant starts.
If your growing season is short, an indoor start may be necessary. Giant pumpkin growers in many areas, find it a necessity to start seedlings indoors. It affords the extra growing time these monsters need to grow from hundreds of pounds to over a ton in weight!
Rainy spring weather sometimes makes the soil too soggy for planting pumpkins from seeds outdoors until later in the season. If your garden is in a low-lying area, the soil may be too wet in the spring to directly sow the seeds in your garden. So, an indoor start may be just what your pumpkins need.
For giant pumpkin growers, the big, thick-shelled pumpkin seeds, can be hard to germinate. An indoor start allows growers to provide the ideal seed starting environment. And, then they can pamper their seedlings.
By transplanting seedlings, you can provide the correct, final spacing to avoid overcrowding.
Many growers find it is fun planting pumpkin seeds indoors so they can watch the seedlings grow.
Important Tip: Pumpkins grow quickly. We strongly recommend a 4″ or 5′ peat pot. We also recommend a heated germination mat. It provides the ideal temperatures for your seed starts.
About Peat Pots – and other seed starting supplies
