Tilling it in? Yeah, that probably was a bit too much manure and 'shrooms. I'd think that seeds or young plants of any kind would have a bit of trouble with that. A bit rich. Digging and mixing it by hand to about twelve to sixteen inches deep, you mighta got away with it.

Preparing punkin hills from scratch? Only thing I can think of is to prepare some two foot square holes, about two feet deep, with a three-way mix of natural dirt, compost and composted manure and start over and transplant your punkins to the new 'digs' - if you'll pardon the pun. Usually, when I have the time, I'll let the prepared hill sit for a couple or three weeks before planting, if I can get away with it.

With the beds in my current garden already being prepped to approx sixteen inches deep, I just go ahead and plant and be done with it.

Mixing composted manure and 'shrooms into the soil with a tiller? In a bed for regular veggies?Yeah. Go kinda easy on it. An inch or so of either one, spread evenly across the bed, till it in, and you're generally good to go. Same with peat moss.

Punkin roots, like watermelons, grow deep, as in two to three feet or more deep. That means that they take an entirely different approach wrt prep work. That means you gotta get out yer shovel and dig.

wbonesteel, thanks. I will have to come up with another plan, my body is too shot to dig. I also have very shallow soil, digging down a foot would be hard for a young man.
I may have to use the post-hole diggers and prep some planting holes within the 150 sq. ft. area and replant.

Larry

Yeah. I know what ya mean. Working on my own garden liked to have killed me. That's why I'm so glad that most of the hard work is finished!! I've been putting it off, but I've got a couple or three more hours of hard labor to do, and it all gets easier from here on out.

Improvise, adapt and overcome. Sounds like you have a plan. I hope it works out for ya.

Larry, i have grown pumpkins in some of the poorest Dirt out there in the world. Only ammendments mine received were water when neded. If it is a fairly new bed there may be enough minerals already. Id just give them a little fertilizer and ammemd it a little to loosen the soil for root growth.

Larry, I would go ahead and plant. Some years my Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkins grow straight in our manure/barn scraping pile, and they do fine. They're pretty flexible. I do agree with Busy, though. They don't need much to still produce.

George

I agree with everyone. : )

Your have created a rich mix there, but the pumpkins likely will do just fine anyway.

Pumpkins don't need rich soil, but they tolerate it pretty well.

You'll likely have more foliage and more rampant growth than you otherwise would have had, but you still should get plenty of pumpkins.

I usually put pumpkins and melons in the worst soil I have. They aren't picky since they can send out their roots both deep and wide to pick up the nutrition and moisture they need, so I save the heavily-amended soil for plants that need it. I have grown pumpkins in clay that wasn't amended at all (it was rototilled to break it up since it was heavily compacted) and they did great. I have grown pumpkins in heavily amended soil and they did great. Pumpkins aren't picky.

Dawn