I love pumpkins!  Our family is growing pumpkins for the first time this year.  It’s so much fun doing this and watching our kids get involved in the growing process.  As I sit here in my backyard I’m drawing comparisons between growing a business and growing pumpkins.  Here are 5 examples of how growing pumpkins and a business is the same:

1.)  Before you start – or plant the seeds, make sure that you prepare the soil and have your business plan in hand.  It may be a bit late in the season to plant now, but check out these handy tips on how to plant for next season.

2.) Have a basic understanding of the direction your business or pumpkin vines will grow – or you might destroy your tomato plants or your marriage.  Here’s a great video by the Smith Family that tells you how to do this properly.

3.) To give life to your pumpkins and business you have to give it daily attention and water.  If you start skipping this your pumpkins and business will begin to wither and die. 

4.) Fungus is bad.  If your pumpkins or business has fungus, get on it right away!  We cut a portion of the infected leaves off and treated the remaining bad and good leaves with a 1 part milk, 9 part water mixture at dusk.  Does your business or career have fungus?   Maybe something that’s not killing it completely but causing your business to slowly die?  The sooner you figure this out, the sooner things will improve and grow.  I’m not sure if milk will help with the business side of things, but it seems to be helping with our pumpkins.

5.)  Depending upon the type of pumpkins or business you start, your growth could be extremely quick and begin to consume massive amounts of space, make sure that you’re prepared for the requirements of this endeavor.  Thankfully we have room on the side of our house to grow pumpkins.  We planted seeds about a month and a half ago, and one of the vines is already 12 feet long.  Our one and only pumpkin is already the size of a volleyball.  If your business requires inventory, you need to know where it’s going to be stored – or if your business requires multiple employees to produce the income level you require, where will your office be?  Can your employees work remotely with a company provided laptop?  Here’s a few older, but solid tips to growing your business.

Good luck growing your pumpkin business!

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