The Gourd Family, in it’s many and varied forms, has been feeding the world since the beginning of recorded history, in every country of the world, in every culture both past and present.

solation Distances: All members rely on insects for pollination. If you want to save your own seed, you’ll have to check out any bee flying distances from neighbour’s gardens as well. Each plant produces both male and female flowers. My experience shows that bees as well as wind, use valley systems to travel down, and I have found that sometimes different members of the same species can be grown relatively close without crossing when using these patterns. You will have to do your own research in your own environment!

All members of the curcurbitaceae family will accept pollen from all other members of the same species. The pumpkins of progeny of uncontrolled crosses will bear little or no resemblance to those of the parents. Luckily there are several species and it’s possible to grow one pumpkin from each species and get a reasonable range without them crossing (i.e. you can grow 4 pumpkins each year, one from each of the pepo, moschata, maxima and mixta families, without them crossing).

Minimum Numbers: It is best to grow 6 pumpkins of each cultivar to maintain genetic variability, rather than saving seed from only one fruit or vine.

If you’re saving seed, you can also hand pollinate pumpkins. Hand pollination is described very well in Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed To Seed (available from Koanga) and it works well. Traditionally the seed is always saved from pumpkins which set after the first on each vine, and also save the seed from the middle of the pumpkin. The first few courgettes or the first pumpkins on a vine contain far less seed than those that set later.
When To Plant: For the best seed you must plant your seed in September/October to give the plants maximum time to mature.

Rogueing: Choose your best plants if you have many planted, select for health, vigour, taste. If you are concerned that some of your original seed may be crossed then rogueing before the flowers open is critical. You can actually see what the fruit is going to be like quite well before the flowers open. If you can see they are not true to type, pull the whole plant out now before the flowers open and the pollen from this plant ruins all the other seed.

Processing: Once you have your pumpkins harvested, it is best to save them to fully mature for a month before taking out the seed. Traditionally, the seed for saving was taken from the best pumpkin (maybe the best tasting or longest storing etc.) and it was selected from the middle of the cavity. You can then simply dry the seed until it snaps when bent and store (a window sill or greenhouse are good places to dry the seeds).
Rather than simply just collecting and drying the seed, you can put the seed into water for a day or two (stirring often) and then rub and float off all the orange flesh and rubbish that hangs onto the seed if simply dried. There is no real need to do this for home seed saving, but it does make for beautiful seed.

Seed Life Expectancy: Watermelon seed will remain viable for 6 years under cool, dry, dark conditions, rockmelons 5 years, cucumber 10 years, all squash and pumpkin 6 years.