This will be the first article of my gardening blog. I will document my gardening endeavors with progress, obstacles, tips, recipes, stories, ups and downs or just pretty pictures :-)

I love pumpkins

They are quite easy to grow and the harvest can be very rewarding. There are countless pumpkin cooking recipes for every taste.

In 2016, the harvest was exceptional. I could prepare a different pumpkin dish every day, but that's a story for another day. I collected the seeds, washed and dried them, and stored them in a paper bag for
resowing in the following years.

2016-09-30 16.44.40.jpg
pumpkin seeds on newspaper, end of september 2016

Day 1

Upper Austria, Sunny 24 °C
The seeds I planted this year are almost 2 years old. To be safe, the plants will grow indoors and put outside after the last spring frost, in the beginning of May.

I put the seeds in water over night to weaken the shell so the sprouting seed can break through easier.
I planted pumpkin and also some water melon seeds (it's probably too cold for melons here, but I'll give it a try).
I put soil from the garden in egg cartons and plant pots, put the seeds inside and covered them with soil.

pumpkin and melon seeds in water

soil in egg cartons

plant pots and egg cartons in glass annex...I'll remove the sheets later so the plants get more light

As a little experiment, because the weather is so warm and I'm an optimist, I planted some pumpkin seeds directly outside. Let's hope for no more frost this spring and may the snails have mercy on my pumpkins ;-)

I dug some holes in the compost pile and put 2-3 pumpkin seeds in each