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.