I planted 20 pumpkin and winter squash hills a month ago, putting 6 seeds per hill for a total of 120 seeds. Two weeks later, only 17 had sprouted for a germination rate of 14.17%. Some of the varieties had one, two, or three sprouts per hill but two of the varieties had none at all.

I reseeded, putting enough seeds in each hill to bring the total back to 6. So if a hill had three sprouts, I'd plant three more seeds of that variety; if a hill had only one sprout, I'd plant 5 seeds of that variety.

Two weeks after the replanting, every hill has at least one sprout and most have four to six. The new sprouts are all from the reseeding.

There was no sudden chill or frost during this period and I watered them all regularly. It seems that this happens most years, having to reseed the pumpkin hills for poor germination rates. Has anyone else had this problem with pumpkins?

Paul

Pavel314 wrote:
....
There was no sudden chill or frost during this period and I watered them all regularly. It seems that this happens most years, having to reseed the pumpkin hills for poor germination rates. Has anyone else had this problem with pumpkins?

we seem to plant them late enough that they do
pretty well. i've not ever had to replant from a
germination problem. more likely the chipmunks/etc
have gotten them.

last year when i was cleaning out squash i had
tons of seeds and put them in one worm bucket.
and then forgot about it until i went to use that
bucket this spring out in the gardens. i now have
an area that looks like a strange carpet it has
so many squash plants sprouted in there. going
to trim them all off. i don't want them to
smother that bean patch.


songbird