The 2025 Pre Season Stocktake

It’s the time of the year I start to work out what I have on hand for the upcoming giant pumpkin growing season in the Tiny Patch 2.0.

This could be something you do as well. No matter your pumpkin growing skill or previous experience.

Let’s dive into what I think about during this pumpkin growing stocktake.

Seeds

I make sure I have seeds on hand. It’s important to have them ready for when you need to plant.

Make sure you have back ups, if something goes wrong you’ll still have a good start to your growing season.

Seed Starting Items

Now it’s time to move to things that can help with seed starting.

Here’s the thing I need to check I have on hand:

• Cheap nail files
• Plastic bags
• Paper towels
• A warm location

These items are an easy yes for me.

You don’t need the nail files, you can use sandpaper around 120 grit should be right. Just be gentle when filing the seeds.

Why file the seeds? To help the moisture get inside quicker and kick start the germination process.

This is all optional of course. But with such a solid seed I think it’s a beneficial thing to do. Just make sure not to file the growing top of the seed. Luckily I have a page here that explains it all.

For a warm location I have a heat mat with a thermostat.

For beginners I would start on the top of the hot water cylinder, or a warm location inside that isn’t blasted by sun all day. You don’t want to cook the seeds.

Growing Items

There’s a couple of different things I check for when it comes to growing items.

Early Stage Items

These items are for the very early stages of getting the seed

Seed Raising Mix – I’m not too fussed on the brand of this. I just get whatever is cheap. It all seems to work as good as more expensive stuff.

Pots I usually use whatever I have on hand. Usually around 1 litre in size. I do think that I should be using bigger pots, so that is something to look into. The bigger pots allows the plant to grow a bit more, helping if there are delays in transplanting due to the weather.

Mykos or Azos These can help with increased root growth and help with getting nutrients. It’s not essential, but can help especially if you have the budget for it. I have some left over from last season so will use that.

Early Protection This is essential. You need some early protection for the young seedling after transplanting. It helps with weather extremes and random animals.

I use and like this pop up thing to provide initial protection. Ideally I’d like to have a larger structure that was easy to put up and take down. I’m unsure if I will have something new for this season.

Later Stage Items

These items will help me during the growing season. Let’s check to see what I have on hand.

Watering Items I have a bunch of hoses, a couple of sprinklers and no real need for drip irrigation in the tiny patch setup.

I might have to get some more micro irrigation though. I’ve found it’s worked well in the past for me in the original tiny patch.

Fertiliser I’ve got a large bag leftover from last season. This couple with some soluble seaweed powder I should be right for super basic needs.

I’ll see if the budget stretches to get something new this season.

Sun Protection This doesn’t have to be anything crazy to begin with. But a simple white sheet will help protect the pumpkin from the sun. I better find a cheap 2nd hand one instead of pulling it from the bed.

Stuff to Keep the Pumpkin Warm I was lucky enough to get a couple of old orange sleeping bags to help with cooler nights this season.

Tools

I’ve got a bunch of tools that will help me remove weeds when needed. Rakes, spades and trowels I think I have the basics.

The more basic the tool means you need to put in more work into the pumpkin patch.

Larger patches benefit from powered tools. For the tiny patch things just take a bit longer to sort out and a bit more elbow grease.

Anything Else?

One of the things I like about this hobby of growing giant pumpkins is the ability to grow one with very little or basic equipment, things most people will already have on hand.

Sure you can always scale everything up with bigger and better everything.

But at the core of the hobby it’s very easy to get into and get started. If you are reading this and wanting to give giant pumpkin growing a go I recommend it.

Let me know if I’ve missed something by leaving a comment below.