Ornamental pumpkin

The ornamental gourd is annual and dies after the first frost. The plant itself does not overwinter. Harvest the fruit fully ripe before a hard frost (they then last for months as decoration), take seeds from fully ripe fruit if you wish and dry them in an airy spot in the shade, to sow indoors on the windowsill from March/April next spring.

The ornamental gourd is an annual member of the squash family and is propagated exclusively from seed. The plant dies after the seeds ripen, and vegetative methods such as cuttings, division or layering do not work for it. For an early start, from mid-April lay 2 to 3 seeds shallowly in each small pot of seed compost and keep them bright and warm at 20 to 22 °C; germination then usually takes 1 to 2 weeks. Direct sowing outdoors is possible from mid-May, once there is no more risk of night frosts and the soil has reached at least 12 °C; press the seeds about 2 to 3 cm deep into the soil. Plant out young plants raised indoors after the Ice Saints (mid-May), at first still under horticultural fleece. If you want to save your own seed, note: the ornamental gourd belongs to the species Cucurbita pepo and crosses easily with other pepo squashes (including edible squashes and courgettes) within bee-flight range. Such crosses do not show in this year's fruit, but only in the offspring grown from it. There, the content of bitter compounds can be raised, which makes the fruit inedible or poorly tolerated. So keep a large distance from other pepo squashes or use controlled hand pollination: close a female flower with a ribbon or a small fabric bag before it opens, pollinate it by hand on the morning it opens with a male flower of the same variety by gently dabbing the stigma with the stamens, and then close and mark the flower again.