How to grow butternut pumpkin, and when to pick it
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Butternut is the pumpkin I'd suggest to anyone growing their first one, because the vines are a bit more manageable than the big grey pumpkins and a good crop will keep you in soup well into winter.
When to sow it here
Pumpkins hate the cold and a frost will kill the seedlings outright, so in Strathalbyn it pays to wait until the frosts are properly done, which usually means late spring rather than the first warm week. The seed also needs warm soil to come up at all, and seed sown into cold ground tends to just sit there and rot. If you're itching to start early, sow a few in pots somewhere warm and plant them out once the weather has settled.
Sow it on a mound
The old way of growing pumpkins on a mound is still the best one, to be honest. Dig a good shovel of compost or well rotted manure into a patch of soil and heap it up into a low mound. Then push 2 or 3 seeds into the top of it about 2cm deep. A mound drains well and warms up quicker than flat ground, and both of those things matter to a pumpkin. Once the seedlings are up and growing, keep the strongest one or two and snip the others off at ground level.
Give it room
A butternut vine will happily run a few metres in every direction, so put it somewhere it can sprawl, along the edge of the patch or out over a bit of lawn you don't mind losing for the summer. If you're short on space, butternut is one of the pumpkins that can be trained up a sturdy frame, because the fruit isn't too heavy, and a sling made from an old stocking takes the weight off the vine as they grow.
Water and feeding
Water deeply at the base of the plant a couple of times a week rather than a little bit every day, and try to keep the water off the leaves, because wet leaves late in the day are what bring on powdery mildew, the white dusty coating that shows up on nearly every pumpkin patch by the end of summer. A thick layer of mulch keeps the soil evenly damp and gives the fruit something clean to sit on. Go easy on high nitrogen fertilisers once the vine is running, because you'll get a jungle of leaves and very few pumpkins.
Why the first flowers fall off
This one worries people every year and it's completely normal. Pumpkins have separate male and female flowers, and the males come first, so the first lot open for a day and then drop off without leaving anything behind. The female flowers come a little later and you can tell them apart easily, because there's a tiny pumpkin sitting right behind the flower. If those little fruit keep going yellow and dropping off, the flowers probably aren't being pollinated, and you can do the job yourself early in the morning by picking a male flower and dabbing it into the middle of an open female one.
How to tell it's ripe
Butternut is ready when the skin has gone a solid tan colour all over and you can't dent it with your fingernail. The stalk attaching it to the vine will have dried out and gone hard and corky by then as well. Cut it off with a few centimetres of stalk left on, because a pumpkin with the stalk snapped off right at the top rots from that spot. Then leave them somewhere dry and airy for a couple of weeks to harden off before you store them, and a well cured butternut will keep for months in a cool cupboard.
Shop related products
- D.T. Brown Pumpkin Butternut seed. The butternut seed this post is about.
- D.T. Brown Pumpkin Queensland Blue seed. The big grey pumpkin, if you've got the space for a much bigger vine.
- Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11KG. Mulch to keep the soil damp and give the fruit something dry to sit on.
- Neutrog Rocket Fuel 6kg. A pelletised organic fertiliser to dig into the mound before you sow.
Did you know we also keep Martins pea straw in the shop, which makes a good soft bed for pumpkins to sit on, and it isn't on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.
The rest of the seed and soil range is in our garden centre, and we're always happy to have a yak about what's going in your patch.
More from the veggie patch
- How to grow zucchini, and when to sow it here
- How to grow cucumbers, and why they turn bitter
- Blue-Banded Bees and Why Your Tomatoes Need Them
I always plant more pumpkin than any sensible household needs, and I'm still yet to meet a neighbour who'll say no to one.
Candeece
