Pumpkin · Jijiang, Chongqing, China
When to plant pumpkins in Jijiang
Main outdoor window
31 Mar - 14 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
2 February
In Jijiang, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
29 Jun - 29 Jul
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Jijiang
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
12-26 Jan
Three weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
31 Mar - 14 Apr
Held back until the soil is warm enough for this crop. The frost date on its own would say 16 Feb, which is too cold for it to start.
Plant out
31 Mar - 14 Apr
Held back until the soil is warm enough for this crop. The frost date on its own would say 16 Feb, which is too cold for it to start.
Harvest
29 Jun - 29 Jul
Pumpkins through the year
Against the frost risk in Jijiang
Why these dates
If your frost-free season is shorter than 110 days, start indoors and choose a smaller cultivar. Giant pumpkins are a long-season crop, not a beginner one.
Foliage dies at the first frost, but mature fruit tolerates a light touch. Harvest before a hard frost or the flesh will not store.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Pumpkins are timed from 3 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Jijiang.
With one correction, which is the note at the top of the page: the offset alone would put this crop in soil that is still too cold for it. Where the frost date and the soil temperature disagree, the dates here follow the soil, because a seed in cold ground either rots or waits, and a sowing made a fortnight later usually overtakes it.
The median frost-free season here is 322 days, against 90 to 120 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Jijiang
Other vegetables to time
Growing pumpkins in Jijiang
When should I plant pumpkins in Jijiang?
Aim for 31 Mar - 14 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 31 Mar - 14 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
Can I plant pumpkins earlier in Jijiang?
Frost is finished by about 16 Feb, but the soil is still too cold. Pumpkins will not start until it reaches 18°C (64.4°F), and here that is around 31 Mar. Going in earlier usually means seed that rots or transplants that sit and sulk, and a later sowing catches them up.
When will pumpkins be ready to harvest in Jijiang?
Expect to start picking around 29 Jun - 29 Jul, based on 90 to 120 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will pumpkins tolerate?
Foliage dies at the first frost, but mature fruit tolerates a light touch. Harvest before a hard frost or the flesh will not store.