They may reseed themselves. I have some sort of volunteer melon that's popped up from last year; so yes, if you let things "go to seed" they'll probably come back next year.

Abby

So, have I made a mistake by planting about 8 pumpkin seeds in my backyard!?!? In other words, is my wife going to kill me because this will become a problem regrowing NEXT YEAR TOO!?!? UGH!

I was hoping to move my pumpkins to another place next year...I just put them in one area to "test"!

By the way, I am absolutely LOVING gardening!! I didnt know it could be SO much fun!

Honestly, I think the pumpkins will only regrow if you leave a pumpkin on the ground to break down and rot. I had a pumpkin volunteer come up where I had my compost bins before moving them. We composted Jr's halloween pumpkins and voila!

I think you are safe if all eight seeds grow and at the end of the season you REMOVE anything that might have seeds, ie; pumpkins! ;-)

Why don't you just pick the pumpkins when they are ripe and not leave them to rot in your yard. Also if you leave them in your yard you will not get new pumpkins. What you will get is a mass of seedlings (20+) in one spot and since there are so many so close together they are stuggle to survive and produce weak plants that will eventually die. The problem is if squirrels or other critters spread out the seeds. I have a cacao tree in a huge pot in my yard and a squirrel planted a dozen or so seeds about 4 inches apart (which is still too close but you get the idea). Also if you till the area this will spead out the seeds.

On a side note you absolutely should move your pumpkins to another area next year. If you keep your patch in the same spot you will find that it becomes infested with all sorts of bad bugs (bad for your pumpkins).

Just remember that squash/pumpkins cross very easily and if you have another type of the same scientific family (like in Halloween pumpkin and zucchini or certain gourds)you are likely to have crosses which are very unpredictable. Absolute minimum isolation to assure pure seed is 400 feet from another planting.

But hand pollination is easy, and it's easy to produce your own seed for each year. That's what I do. Take a look at the thread below. Last summer I illustrated the technique in the vegetable forum.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: hand pollination of squash

I left a pumpkin in the flower bed last year. It rotted away . this year it grew a vine with squash blossoms and one medium pumpkin. it started out green and as of 8-25 it is bright orange.

my kiddos smashed pumpkins in the backyard last year and they sprouted so I move them to a different space in the yard and we have a8te pumpkins for Halloween this year

We missed the last drop off at our local compost dump last year so I buried two or three pumpkins in the back of the garden thinking I would just pull anything that came up in the spring. A couple of beautiful, and super strong, plants appeared this spring so I decided that they were too nice to pull. Needless to say the vines have pretty much taken over the garden, but we have about 6 or 7 pumpkins so far and a TON or flowers still blooming. The kids love to run out and look at the pumpkins every day and watch them grow. It’s my first time growing then and it’s now my favorite thing that I have ever planted. I wish I had more room so that I could have more pumpkins next year - with a garden space reserved just for them! :)

I composted a large white pumpkin last year. Volunteer vines produced numerous uniform softball sized white pumpkins. I have picked 13 thus far. Uniform in size.