Welcome to the forum. I'm glad that you decided to post a question so that we know you're here.

Is there a specific kind of pumpkin you want to grow for Halloween decorations? There are many different kinds and not all are orange and round.

The exact timing of seed-planting will depend a little bit on which variety you choose, but most decorative Halloween type pumpkins will mature in 90-110 days from the time your seeds sprout. If abnormal weather slows down seed germination or growth, it might take longer. Because we generally have plentiful sunshine and hot weather, sometimes pumpkins grown here will mature more quickly than they do in some parts of the country where summers are cooler and the sunlight is less intense. So, always take those "Days To Maturity" numbers with a grain of salt as they are just general estimates and are not etched in stone. You probably would do fine with a mid-June planting of any variety you choose. Howden is a popular Halloween type of pumpkin, but there are many other varieties available. If it makes you nervous to wait until mid-June, you can sow seed earlier as long as the soil is warm enough.

Do your research now and understand the main pumpkin diseases and pests and have a game plan in mind. In our part of the country, squash bugs and squash vine borers are incredibly pesky and persistent and have ruined many a pumpkin patch. You have to be very proactive and be prepared to fight the pests if they show up in your garden. Sometimes (and this largely depends on how close to your garden other squash and pumpkins are being grown) the squash bugs and squash vine borers show up the first year you begin growing plants they like, but sometimes it can take them years to show up. I grew a huge number of pumpkin and winter squash varieties annually for our first 6 or 7 years here, and then the pests found our garden and now I only grow a select few that are resistant to squash vine borers.

You can start pumpkins in plantable pots (peat pots, cowpots, soil bocks, etc.) and set them out when they still are very small, but they are not particularly fond of being transplanted and there's really no need to do it. They are not at all like tomatoes or peppers which need to be started indoors and grown to a certain size before you transplant them into the ground. The reason we do that here is so that our tomato and sweet pepper plants can flower and set fruit before the kinds of temperatures arrive that impede pollination and fertilization. With pumpkins, the heat does not affect them that way, so there's nothing to be gained from starting the plants indoors as transplants. Pumpkin seed sown in the ground at the appropriate time (after soil temperatures have stabilized at 60 degrees or higher) will germinate and grow just fine. The warmer the soil temperatures, up to a point, the more quickly the seeds will sprout. If you feel strongly that you want to grow transplants indoors, you only need to start the seed a week or two before your outdoor planting time, and transplant the young seedlings into the ground as soon as possible after the seeds germinate. Pumpkin plants grow rapidly and can become rootbound incredibly early in the young plants' lives.

Sometimes, when growing something that is new to you, it pays to plant seeds a couple of different times a week or two apart so that you have a couple of chances to get plants started instead of putting all your eggs in one basket.

Pumpkin vines tend to be rampant growers and most of them do not produce very many fruit per vine. There are some exceptions, including many members of the C. moschata family that produce huge yields of winter squash on rampant vines. (All pumpkins actually are winter squash.)

As you no doubt have noticed, there's more to decorative pumpkins than orange, orange, orange. You can grow them in many colors, including orange, yellow, green, white, blue, pink and brown or black. There's also some that are bicolored.

If your space is limited, Cheyene" is a good bush variety that doesn't require an enormous amount of garden space. Smaller decorative pumpkins like Jack-B-Little and Baby Boo, and small pie pumpkins like Small Sugar Pie all can be grown climbing trellises or fences. Seminole is a buff-colored C. moschata type whose vines can run 20-40' and I let mine climb all the way up into the trees. Another variety that often is grown to provide decorative Halloween Pumpkins is Big Max because it produces very large pumpkins, although it does need rich, fertile soil and lots of water to do so. If you try to grow a variety like Big Max with too little water or in soil lacking in nutrition, you still will get pumpkins but they will not necessarily get very big. If you like the relatively new (to commercial cultivation) warted pumpkins, seeds of varieties like "Goosebumps" or "Knucklehead" will give you those sorts of pumpkins. I grew several of the old, heirloom, open-pollinated warted winter squash long before the newer hybrid ones were introduced into cultivation. A couple of the OP heirlooms that are warted are Red Warty Thing and Galeux d'Eysines.

I'm going to link a fact sheet from OSU below that discusses growing pumpkins and winter squash in Oklahoma. While it was written primarily for commercial growers (none of us here probably have to worry about how many pumpkins per acre our plants will yield since we aren't planting an acre of pumpkins), there is a great deal of helpful info in the fact sheet.

Pumpkins are not hard to grow. The easiest way to grow them is to throw a Halloween pumpkin (or its' seeds if you cleaned them out to carve a Jack-o-lantern) on the compost pile in the fall. The following spring or summer, once the soil/compost pile temperatures have reached the right range, you'll usually have more pumpkin plants sprouting than you'll ever need. So, don't overthink it and don't try too hard. Getting pumpkins to sprout and grow from seed is as easy as pie (pun intended). Protecting the plants and their fruit from the squash vine borers and squash bugs will be the big challenge you face.

Good luck and don't hesitate to ask more questions. We have quite a few pumpkin growers here.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fact Sheet: Squash and Pumpkins

Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin would work for carving, as it isn't rock hard and does have a sizable seed cavity. It's a c. moschata, which means it won't likely disapoint you by dying before it produces. Take a look at the link below. It would need space. One of my friends planted this one on July 2, last summer and got a good crop. I generally try to plant in May or June.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin

Thank you so much for the info! It will be put to good use! I think next year I'll go with the old timely cornfield or some other squash bug resistant type, I already have to go to war with the squash bugs over the summer squash.

Space isn't a problem I have 20 acres and the garden is already 120 ft wide and 60 ft long. I told the wife about the warty pumpkins dawn suggested and now those are on the shopping list!

Once again thank you for the help and the quick response! The weather today had me in the garden getting the rows ready for onions