Who grows pumpkins for deer?

i have an area i need to utilize with a food plot

about 2 acres ....I want more deer there so I can hunt close to home with my Dad. who's 84 and also Grandkids

I do 330.
Every year for 15 or so.


They trump everything else for late season imo.
2 acres, holy crap, that would provide a large amount of tonnage
2 days ago, I was getting ready to get in a stand but the deer were already up moving hard at about 2:30 when I was getting dressed so I decided to just stay in the cabin.

Roughly 30 deer came into the plot before dark. (13 or 14) bucks.

I grow some every year for miss Daisy as she loves pumpkins and fall, the deer come over the front yard fence and onto the front deck to eat those pumpkins... So yeah, they like em, lol

Any particular variety? I'd imagine you'd want one that would store better so it would last longer in the field.

When is the optimal time to plant pumpkins to maximize their value to the deer?

Never seen this. Do the deer smash the pumpkin with a hoof, then eat the inside? Do the eat everything?

I plant the smaller sugar pie varieties and June 10th is my go date.

I'd say Memorial Day

Thanks for the answers. I think I can find a way to probably seed some down into terminated rye about that time. Use the mat of rye to help with weed control until the pumpkins canopy. Then come back and seed some rye over the top in the fall to give them some greens in with the pumpkins.

I plan on Strips of Green

Wide rows for pumpkins

My Apple trees started producing last year 4 trees so my plan is coming together...I hope

just , tell them you re---cycle to take all the un-sold ones from Wally-world

15 minutes per pumpkin for them to break and consume basket ball size

Do you need to break some apart or do they figure it out themselves? When do they start eating them?

Our local Walmart has a bunch of pumpkin's left over. They can't get rid of them now. At near $9.00 each not many sold I guess, then to 1/2 price now no one wants them. Most were basketball size.

They know how to open them.

Only thing I have had get mine were groundhogs. Out if a 1/16 acre I got about 6 good ones. The groundhogs only wanted to sample each one. Just a nice single gouge 2.5 to 3 inches long in almost every one.

A 220 and 8" rgb took 3 of them and one skunk. Now I think I want to try a strip or two about 6' wide and 100 yards long beside other food plots. Or should I go bigger. Does it take them a year or two to get it figured out or will they take right to them?

I must have weird deer because mine won't touch them. I worked a few years ago at a farm stand and got a bunch of pumpkins that I threw out for the deer with cameras on them. They rotted into the ground and nothing ate them except a few mice.

Yours were Southern pumpkins.......so they probably had gravy poured on them.

What keeps the deer from destroying the patch early in the year, long before season?

Wonder if lack of frost down there is the difference. Everything seems to sweeten up after a couple hard frosts... sugar beets, turnips, radishes and I assume pumpkins too.

Nah, nothing can turn down gravy. We do sweet taters down here. Don't believe me, just try bringing pumpkin pie to Thanksgiving dinner. You'll get a bless your heart for it. Sweet potato pie is where it's at.

Never intentionally but they’re the best attraction in the garden, I’ve seen them eat through outside or else take their hoof and break it to eat out the inside, in that situation I’d plant rows instead of hills and put 8 to 12 feet between rows and used pumpkins for pies not carving as they have a higher sugar content.

she covered them in cheap grits

I'm in for Next growing season

save the seeds now then
and feed the mosq's on 7 June planting
sometimes the deer turn on to eat the vines would be the only problem I see next July

My wife raises them for fall decorations and for the two granddaughters. We had about 30 of them this year. Since Halloween is done earlier in the week I hauled them to the ranch for the turkeys, pheasant and wildlife. Yesterday I did notice deer droppings around where I threw them out.

Scott. 2 acres may be a bit much unless you have a huge deer population.
For 2acres, I'd try a couple different plantings. Turnips/ rye..?

If you grow pumpkins and leave them in the field you can legally hunt over them, at least around here. If you place a pumpkin in the field it's considered baiting and that's illegal.

Exactly! Happy trapping! ScottW

The deer here snuck into the back yard and started eating the growing vine tips, but they eat everything around here. I usually break one or two open to get them started, they figure it out from there, even the ones starting to rot get ate up. I planted late, first week of July to avoid most of the squash bugs, they were ready end of sept. beginning of oct.

Same here.

I would plant corn and beans.

You can do all 3, Indians did it all the time, corn, beans and squash, except the beans are a pole type to grow up the corn...

The nice thing is if they clean them up early you can buy some unsold Halloween pumpkins and reload the patch that way. LOL

Next year I plan on a 1/2 acre of pumpkins in the radishes and turnips the one is 1 1/2 acres food plot.The other food plot is about 2 acres I'll try a 1/2 acre on that one also.

Can't do that here Jerry.

2 acres is not enuff for corn.

plant your rows about 6 feet apart! , the vines will grab one another and will grow better, and protect one another in a windstorm!

Bucks and bears, do bears eat pumpkins as a preferred food??

Not sure Mike? Never tried them.

Don't reckon it's that. I live in Northern MS and we've already had a hard freeze this year. Frosts are pretty common. It may be that there's just generally more food available? Lots of nuts, persimmons, muscadines, etc., not to mention food plots everywhere as well as feeders. Maybe way up north pumpkins are their only option? lol.

yoteT30

maybe it's the variety

I've turned on quite alot of people to put them in as foodplots.
Vast majority say
However, any new foodsource may take the local deer awhile to get accustomed to them if they haven't tried them before.

… you might aught to try feeding out a steer … they get accustomed to it fairly quick

… maybe also get a market for your produce since it appears you’re really into growing things

.. just suggestions hero

.. and quit turning on people lol

A fried of mine and pick your own pumpkins. The left over ones went to a near by sheep farm. Sheep loved them.

I got a truck load cheap one year after halloween and fed them to the pigs, I think everything likes punkins