Crop fact sheet · Warm season · frost tender
Winter Squash & Pumpkin
Not in season right now in Houston. Dates below.
Your dates in Houston
| Window | Order seed by | Start indoors | Plant | First harvest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring 2027 | Feb 1 | — | Feb 22 – Mar 15 | from May 18 |
| Fall 2027 | Aug 12 | — | Sep 2 – Sep 16 | from Nov 26 |
Worked out from AgriLife planting windows (days before/after average frost) and Houston's average frost dates. "Order seed by" is our own 3-week heads-up, not an AgriLife date.
The numbers
- How to plant
- Sow seed directly 1" deep, 36" apart, rows 78" apart.
- Days to harvest
- 85–100 days
- Yield per 10 ft of row
- about 10 lb (100 lb per 100 ft of row)
- Sun
- Full sun
- Family
- Cucurbitaceae (for rotation)
Water
Water enough to prevent wilting, at least weekly in dry weather; for fall pumpkins about 1 to 1.5 inches per week until fall rains arrive.
Feeding
- At planting: 2 to 3 lb of 10-10-10 per 100 sq ft, or 2 to 3 tablespoons per hill.
- First blooms: About 2 tablespoons around each hill at first bloom (AgriLife EHT-041); for pumpkins, a high-nitrogen side-dress about 3 weeks after thinning (Greg Grant, AgriLife).
Not sure what your soil needs? Get a soil test first.
Texas heat
AgriLife pumpkin notes say to water 1 to 1.5 inches per week through summer heat until fall rains and to control insects, since viruses they spread have no cure. No specific heat threshold was found in the sources.
Pests to watch
- squash bugs
- cucumber beetles
- squash vine borer
- whiteflies
- pickleworm
Diseases
- powdery mildew
- anthracnose
- viruses
- gummy stem blight
What to do about them: pest sheet · what's wrong with my plant?
When it's ready
Full-sized fruit with a hard rind you cannot puncture with a thumbnail, a cream-to-orange ground spot and a woody stem. Leave 3 to 4 inches of stem on pumpkins. A light frost won't hurt the fruit.
Storing it
Keeps for months: store at 50-55 F and 50-75% humidity with good airflow, about 2 to 3 months for best quality (NC State).
Texas tips
- For Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, plant about 4 months (mid-July) before the first killing frost and add about 25 days to the listed maturity for slower fall growth (Greg Grant, AgriLife).
- Pumpkins: hills 4 to 6 ft apart, 4 to 5 seeds per hill, thinned to the 2 strongest.
- Pumpkin row in E-502: 75-100 days to harvest, 36-48 in between plants, rows 60-96 in.
- Vining types like Hubbard and acorn need more room than bush types.
Varieties that do well in Texas
Table King, Butternut, Waltham, Big Max, Connecticut Field, Jack O'Lantern, Small Sugar, Jack Be Little, Spirit Hybrid, Howden, Magic Lantern, Baby Bear