Growing Pumpkins Up | Allotment Newsletter

Since entering the gardening community in March 2022, I have found that a lot of things are deemed quite controversial. Who knew people were so passionate about the “correct” way to garden? I hadn’t always planned to grow my pumpkins up. However, in April 2021 I planted ten pumpkin seeds and ended up with a grand total of zero pumpkins, so something needed to change. This meant that in 2022, I wasn’t taking any chances and I was going to sow even more!

If you have ever grown pumpkins, or seen them growing, you will know that pumpkins are quite greedy. They like to spread their vines and take up all your space. So, if we are planning to grow many pumpkin plants, we need to make sure we are maximising our space and choosing our varieties wisely. The first variety of pumpkin I chose to grow were Jack O Lanterns which are great for carving as well as eating. Being one of the larger and heavier varieties of pumpkin, these would be taking up most of my ground space. Next, I chose Zombie pumpkins. Zombie pumpkins are typically smaller than a Jack O Lantern but can still get quite beefy if you feed it right. I chose to grow these on the ground too in case they got too heavy to hang.

Having 4 Jack O Lantern plants and 4 Zombie plants left me with no more room for growing pumpkins on the ground, so I started to look to the smaller varieties for growing upwards. After having a browse at other people’s pumpkin successes, I chose Baby Boos and Jack Be Littles after seeing Emma Bailey’s Emma’s Allotment Diaries and seeing her 2021 success. I picked myself up two garden archways from Wilko and some garden wire and made my beautiful archway which is the main feature of my plot. I planted four pumpkins on each side. I should really have planted only three on each side as fitting four in was a bit cosy but after last year’s failure I wanted to up my chances!

I document my allotment adventures over on Instagram (@allies.garden) and I had not braced myself for the controversy of growing upwards. In response to photos of my pumpkins growing over the arch, I received messages telling me that pumpkins are not supposed to be grown that way and that it was “wrong”. A lot of things in gardening don’t have a right or a wrong way to do them and the direction in which to grow pumpkins is one of those things. Pumpkin plants send out a lot of tendrils to grab onto things which shows they are naturally well suited for climbing. After a bit of gentle encouragement, you shouldn’t even need to tie your pumpkins in as they will grasp onto the structure themselves. And at the end of the season you’ll have a hard time pulling them off though!

A common problem when growing pumpkins is rot so you will see everyone placing their pumpkins on tiles (or in my case empty juice cartons) when they start to grow to raise them off the ground and increase airflow. If you are growing your pumpkins upwards, you can skip this task as the pumpkins already have the maximum airflow they can get. Why would we stop growing our pumpkins upwards just because its not conventional? Not only is it a time spacer and a space saver, it’s also a beautiful feature for your plot or garden. Honestly, you’d be daft not to..