Pumpkins Will Grow WHERE? The Strangest Places Pumpkins Have Sprouted

Pumpkins have apparently never received the memo that they're supposed to grow in pumpkin patches.

Give a pumpkin seed some moisture, warmth and a little bit of something resembling soil, and it may decide that's good enough. Gardeners call plants that appear without intentionally being planted volunteers, and pumpkins are particularly enthusiastic volunteers.

That means last year's jack-o'-lantern can sometimes become this year's completely unauthorized pumpkin patch. And pumpkins have turned up in some pretty strange places.

The Flower Bed You Definitely Did Not Plant With Pumpkins

The compost phenomenon creates another surprise. If pumpkin seeds survive in compost and that compost gets distributed around the yard, you've essentially been planting pumpkins without knowing it. Suddenly there's a pumpkin vine growing between the flowers.

And unlike a discreet little volunteer petunia, a pumpkin does not quietly blend in. Pumpkin vines can travel many feet, climb through neighboring plants and generally behave as though the entire flower bed has been reassigned to the Pumpkin Department.

One gardener recently described a volunteer pumpkin growing in a masonry flower bed outside a front window. Instead of removing it, they decided to let it stay and see what happened.

We approve of this approach.

The Compost Pile: Pumpkin Paradise

This is probably the most common scene of the crime.

You toss an old pumpkin into the compost after Halloween. It decomposes. Winter comes and goes. Then one spring morning, something green emerges from the pile. Congratulations. Your garbage is gardening.

Some gardeners don't even discover the surprise until they've spread the compost around the yard. One Austin gardener tossed jack-o'-lantern seeds into the compost, spread that compost the following spring and ended up with a volunteer pumpkin producing fruit.

The Manure Pile

If a pumpkin could choose its own accommodations, this might be the penthouse suite.

Pumpkins are heavy feeders, and a pile of well-aged manure can provide an enormous supply of nutrients. Some growers intentionally take advantage of this and grow pumpkins directly on manure or "muck" heaps.

One grower in England has been growing pumpkins and other vegetables on horse-manure heaps for years, with pumpkins apparently thriving in the unlikely setting.

It's not glamorous.

The pumpkins do not care.

Somewhere in the Yard Where You Threw a Pumpkin Months Ago

This is perhaps the best kind of volunteer pumpkin because it involves absolutely no gardening skill whatsoever.

Old Halloween pumpkin gets tossed somewhere. Pumpkin decomposes. Human forgets about pumpkin. Spring arrives. Pumpkin remembers.

Gardeners routinely report vines emerging from places where pumpkins or their seeds were discarded months earlier. In South Texas, one gardener threw old jack-o'-lanterns into the compost and eventually ended up with a volunteer plant producing three orange pumpkins—despite temperatures reaching around 100 degrees.

That's determination.

And Then There's the Pumpkin That Goes Vertical

Sometimes the pumpkin starts in a perfectly reasonable location and then makes questionable life choices.

Pumpkin vines can scramble through fences, shrubs and other structures. If a developing fruit ends up on a climbing vine, you can find yourself with something that looks deeply wrong:

A pumpkin hanging in midair.

Small pumpkins can sometimes remain suspended successfully. Larger ones are another matter entirely, because eventually gravity would like to participate in the gardening process.

Growers who intentionally train pumpkins and squash vertically generally support developing fruit rather than trusting the stem with the job.

Still, stumbling across a pumpkin dangling from a fence is a good reminder that pumpkin vines have absolutely no respect for our expectations.

Why Are Pumpkins So Good at This?

A pumpkin is basically carrying its next generation around inside itself.

One fruit can contain hundreds of seeds. If the pumpkin is left somewhere and decomposes, those seeds may end up surrounded by organic material. Add suitable temperatures, moisture and sunlight, and some can germinate.

A properly managed hot compost pile can destroy many weed and vegetable seeds—the Woodlands Township, for example, recommends maintaining active compost around 135–165°F. But backyard compost piles don't always maintain those temperatures throughout the entire pile.

Which means some pumpkin seeds survive and wait for blooming conditions.

So Could Your Porch Pumpkins Come Back Next Year?

Possibly.

If an uncarved pumpkin eventually gets tossed into a cool compost pile or breaks down somewhere with favorable conditions, don't be entirely surprised if you see suspiciously large leaves emerging next spring.

Just remember that a volunteer pumpkin is a bit of a genetic mystery. Pumpkins and squash can cross-pollinate, and seeds from hybrids don't necessarily produce fruit identical to the pumpkin you started with.