When in the garden... Harvest seeds from your prized plants.

Dill's giant pumpkin from 2010 growing season

The picture above shows my two little men with our Dill's Giant pumpkin (2010). The plant was raised from seed by our neighbour and I was very excited when she offered me the pumpkin plant because I hadn't started any of my own.


 I set to work making a bed for the plant. The seedling went in a pile of composted chicken manure from our backyard chickens. I chose a place next to the foundation of our house and in a great location to receive sun for most of the day.


Everyone in the family took their turns watering the heavy drinker throughout the growing season, but most of the watering was done by my oldest little man. He was very proud of this pumpkin.


At the end of the season, we weighed the pumpkin with our scale and determined it weighed approx. 115 lbs. The seeds were dried and saved, in hopes of giant pumpkins for 2011. We gave a few seeds to our neighbours as a thank-you and shared some with our family.  On the weekend, seeds harvested from last season were planted in pots in our greenhouse.  Hopefully, some of them will become party favors at my son's Farm birthday party in May.

Here is a picture from carving time. We made a huge jack-o-lantern with it.

With any luck and lots of compost (of course) we'll be saving seeds for next year!!!


Lots of plant love,


When in the garden