Using a mountain of manure for growing pumpkins

A friend of ours was so nice to donate us a few trailers of cow manure. My husband pushed it together and hilled it to a long mountain. This spring, before we went on our trip, end of April, I direct sowed Hokkaido pumpkin in this mountain of manure. The nights where still very cold, but there also where some warm sonny days. I did not really expected much from this, but I wanted to try it out.

Surprisingly enough the second half of Mai a seedling appeared and a few weeks later another two.

Parallel I also sowed the same pumpkins in the greenhouse which I planted middle of June.

We luckily have enough rain this season, since I sowed ratter high in the mountain of manure and that dry’s out the quickest. I should sow and plant at the foot of the manure mountain.

Thanks to all of the rain (we have very much at the moment) the pumpkins are thriving and it looks like this at the moment.

Don’t mind the weeds in the back. I will have to tackle those before they form seeds.