PUMPKIN - QUEENSLAND BLUE

This very popular pumpkin has medium to large fruit weighing 3-5 Kg with smooth, dark grey coloured, very hard, and strongly ribbed skin with rich, deep orange, sweet flesh. It grows on strong productive vines. The fruit are excellent keepers and will last 6 months if picked and stored properly. Matures in about 100 days. Queensland Blue is one of the larger pumpkins, and an old favourite with green, turning grey creamed fruit and a deep orange flesh. It is a good long keeping variety. Pumpkins have large running vines that bear fruit after the peak of summer. If you can grown them in an odd corner where they can scramble over an old fence or garden dwelling, it would be ideal. Generally all pumpkins are harvested when the vine dies and the fruit stalk is dry and brittle, this means that the fruit is then fully mature and has the best flavour possible. Mature fruit stores very well, though is best kept off of concrete floorings. A good way to store pumpkins is in an airy cupboard or cardboard carton. Seed of this variety is getting harder to find. Pumpkin seed should be sown 1.0-2.0cm deep directly into the garden in richly composted soil. Space the plants 1m apart in rows 1.5m apart. Sow three weeks after the last frost has passed in Cold and Temperate areas and from September to February in Tropical and Subtropical areas. Pumpkins do very well when a nitrogen fixing plant, such as clover or bean plants are grown with them. pumpkins tahe at least 21 days to fully ripen once picked so storage until fully ripe will enhance pumpkin flavour. Pumpkins hit by a frost will not store as long as unfrosted pumpkins. These have been treated with Thiram which is a fungicide to protect against attack by pre-emergence fungi on sowing. Packet 5 grams (approx. 25 Seeds)