In February, we launched April 12 as National Pumpkin Sowing Day and now that day is upon us! We hope that you’ve got your seeds at the ready – if you haven’t, there’s still time to get some – so you can get them planted and on their way.

As sponsors of the UK’s giant pumpkin growing competition each autumn at the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth’s annual event in Southampton, we decided to designate a specific National Pumpkin Sowing Day in response to the many queries that we receive around the time of the giant pumpkin weigh-in.  We thought it would be a great incentive for people wanting to try their hand at growing a record-breaker or for those simply wanting to grow a modest pumpkin for carving at Halloween.

Our commercial director, Paul Hansord, who himself sows a couple of pumpkins each year, said: “We decided to set April 12^th as National Pumpkin Sowing Day 2017 and encourage people to get their seeds ready to sow on this date. We’ll show them how to sow and grow their pumpkin with useful tips and informative videos and hope someone out there might grow a pumpkin to rival last year’s winner”.

The heaviest pumpkin at last year’s giant pumpkin event weighed in at 2,252.3lb and was grown by Ian and Stuart Paton who have broken the UK record an incredible 7 times. The majority of entries to the 2016 official weigh-in at the Southampton pumpkin event were grown from seeds that came from giant pumpkins grown by the Patons. Seeds from the Paton twins’ 2016 record-breaking giant pumpkin are still available from T&M if customers want to invest in some excellent giant pumpkin genes. Go to Pumpkin ‘Paton Twins Giant’ to purchase.

RHS Hyde Hall’s Matt Oliver won the award in 2016 for the largest outdoor-grown pumpkin with a seed purchased for £1,250 by Thompson & Morgan. His pumpkin weighed in at an astounding 1,333.8lb (95 stone or 605kg) and the seeds from this aptly named ‘Matt’s Monster’ can also be purchased from Thompson & Morgan.  Matt had the crazy idea of hollowing out his pumpkin, along with some other giant pumpkins, and rowing them across the RHS Hyde Hall lake in November last year. Watch the Madcap Giant Pumpkin Rowing Race by clicking the image below

Giant pumpkin race

Whether you want try to grow a whopper or simply a modest-sized pumpkin to carve at Halloween, we are urging people to sow their seeds today.  We’ll be posting tips and updates on social media over the coming months, so be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep in touch with us, as well as with other budding pumpkin growers, using #growapumpkin

Did you know?  Pumpkin seeds are best sown on their sides

Our how to plant pumpkin seeds video guide can be found here

Sonia Mermagen

Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)