One of our favorite early and mid-game farms is the pumpkin farm. I usually start with a basic manual farm to get them growing as soon as I have the right seeds. This allows us to harvest and trade pumpkins between other projects until we have the materials to build the larger redstone farm.

Benefits of Pumpkin and Melon Farms

Playing on a survival world with young kids is a balancing act between keeping things easy and accessible while also keeping enough of the work to earn their advancements. Building this type of farm is straightforward enough they can understand how it functions and even duplicate it on their own worlds. The easy access to trading with the villagers is great incentive for them to be involved and use it.

For more information about pumpkins and melons you can checkout Minecraft Gamepedia pages here https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Pumpkin and here https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Melon

Uses for Pumpkins and Melons

Trading – Pumpkins and Melons are both great early game trades for Farmer Villagers. The Farmer villagers 2^nd tier trade is 6 pumpkins for 1 emerald, and their 3rd tier trade is 4 melons for 1 emerald. This is a great way to level up the farmers to open the 5^th tier trades and also earn enough emeralds to begin leveling up the other villagers.

Jack-o-Lanterns – These can be used for lighting and decoration around builds. The Jack-o-Lanterns in Minecraft can be used under carpet or slabs and stairs to light up an area without being visible. They are crafted from a torch and a carved pumpkin.

Carved Pumpkins – The carved version of a pumpkin is created by using shears on a regular pumpkin. These can then be used to create Golems, decorations, or as a helmet to prevent Endermen from attacking.

Pumpkin Pie – When crafted with sugar and an egg pumpkins can be made into pumpkin pie which is a great food source. Pumpkin pie restores 8 hunger and 4.8 saturation.

How to design Pumpkin and Melon Farms

Pumpkins and Melons grow differently than the other crops in Minecraft. These both grow as a stem with the Melon or Pumpkin being placed on an available block directly next to the stalk. There are several designs for manual, semi-automatic, or fully automatic farms on YouTube and other sites. There are designs for both Java and Bedrock available as well. Depending on how early in the game you are starting it take a look at the materials they use and pick one that matches what you have available. Many of them use minecart hoppers which if you have extra iron works great. If not look at one that uses the water streams for collection instead. I usually start with a quick manual farm laid out in rows near an area I frequently work. Below are a few images of pumpkin farms I’ve used in previous survival worlds.