How to Choose the Best Halloween Pumpkins to Grow in Your Garden

06.06.2023 - 18:10 / gardenerspath.com / Laura Ojeda Melchor / Winter Squash

Is there anything more autumnal than walking into your garden, the scent of turning leaves in the air, to pick a pumpkin for Halloween?

I think not. And that’s why, this year, I decided to grow three different cultivars in my garden.

For some reason, I figured that since pumpkins (a variety of Cucurbita pepo or winter squash) abound in crisp fall stories and films, they’d naturally grow well in colder climates.

Not quite so. While you can grow these veggies as annuals in any Zone from 3-10, they have a long growing season. A germinated seedling will produce huge, deliciously orange fruit… in a whopping 100+ days.

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That’s at least three months, often four, of frost-free growing time the plant needs. A light frost can kill the vines that support the fruit. While this won’t kill them, they won’t ripen anymore after a vine-killing frost.

In northerly climes like mine up in Alaska, we get maybe two and a half solid months of summer. By early September, the first frost looms.

But harvested C. pepo can last for two to three months off the vine if they’re healthy. As long as you get your seedlings going in time, you can enjoy homegrown Halloween pumpkins.

In this article, you’ll learn how to pick the perfect Halloween pumpkin to plant – and we’ll reveal our favorite varieties, too.

Let’s get growing!

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of when you should plant seeds to be ready for picking in the two months or so before Halloween.

Those of us in northerly climes – USDA Hardiness Zones 3-6 – should start seeds indoors in early April. The