There's Pumpkins in the Air

Sugar pumpkins hanging on their trellis. Almost ready for harvest!

Did you know you can grow pumpkins on a trellis to save space? I probably wouldn't recommend this for the giant carving pumpkins (though it is possible), but for smaller sugar pumpkins it works just fine. Pumpkins are renowned for spreading quickly over large areas, so training them to grow up trellises is one way to grow pumpkins in a smaller space, or in our case, to keep them from covering up the adjacent rows.

This trellis was constructed by our WWOOF farm volunteers. It consists of scrap wood tied together into tripods, with a long pole/branch set on top as a crossbeam. If you trellis pumpkins, it's important to start hanging them on the trellis early, when the pumpkins are still tiny and green. That way the plant naturally grows a strong enough stem to hold up its fruit.