Pumpkin · Yangcheng, Chongqing, China
When to plant pumpkins in Yangcheng
Main outdoor window
22 Feb - 8 Mar
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
8 February
In Yangcheng, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
23 May - 22 Jun
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 Yangcheng
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
18 Jan - 1 Feb
Three weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow direct
22 Feb - 8 Mar
Two weeks after your last frost.
Plant out
22 Feb - 8 Mar
Two weeks after your last frost.
Harvest
23 May - 22 Jun
Pumpkins through the year
Against the frost risk in Yangcheng
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 Yangcheng.
The median frost-free season here is 314 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 Yangcheng
Other vegetables to time
Growing pumpkins in Yangcheng
When should I plant pumpkins in Yangcheng?
Aim for 22 Feb - 8 Mar in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 12-26 Mar - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will pumpkins be ready to harvest in Yangcheng?
Expect to start picking around 23 May - 22 Jun, 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.