Growing Pumpkins instead of having them vine.
I have tried to grow pumpkins overthe last few years. All they seem to do is vine. Its not just a small vine its like 30 feet of vinins. A few flowers will grow but then they fall off and nothing else happens. Is there something I can do to keep them from vining and grow a pumpkin or two for my little ones?????
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
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How have you been fertilizing them? A vine that gets huge but doesn't fruit sounds like it could be too much nitrogen, if you were using a high nitrogen fertilizer on them or if they were growing in the middle of or right next to a fertilized lawn.
Flowers dropping off without setting fruit is often a pollination issue. Pumpkins (and squashes and melons, all in the same family) have separate male and female flowers. Both have to be present at the same time and then the pollen has to get moved from the male flower to the female one, in order for the fruit to get set.
So you need to watch and see if your vine is producing both male and female flowers (they are easy to tell apart, since the female ones come with a little baby pumpkin already behind them). Often when the vine first starts making flowers there will be only one kind, most often only male. If both kinds are present, then you need pollinators, most often bees. If you use any poisons in your yard, then you won't have bees. In that case you can hand pollinate.
Otherwise excessively hot or cold temperatures can prevent pollination. Excessively cold would be night time temps below 50 or 55. Excessively hot would be day time temps above 85 or 90.
Flowers dropping off without setting fruit is often a pollination issue. Pumpkins (and squashes and melons, all in the same family) have separate male and female flowers. Both have to be present at the same time and then the pollen has to get moved from the male flower to the female one, in order for the fruit to get set.
So you need to watch and see if your vine is producing both male and female flowers (they are easy to tell apart, since the female ones come with a little baby pumpkin already behind them). Often when the vine first starts making flowers there will be only one kind, most often only male. If both kinds are present, then you need pollinators, most often bees. If you use any poisons in your yard, then you won't have bees. In that case you can hand pollinate.
Otherwise excessively hot or cold temperatures can prevent pollination. Excessively cold would be night time temps below 50 or 55. Excessively hot would be day time temps above 85 or 90.
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mother ship
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ReptileAddiction
- Greener Thumb
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You now you can trim the right? I have always grown mine in big pots in part shade. Yes I only get a few pumpkins but it is so much easier and less space consuming. I want to try growing them vertically in the 65 gallon version of this.-
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-HGDB20-Reusable-Planting-20-Gallon/dp/B004S0KVFW/ref=pd_sim_lg_1
I grow them in part shade because I live in sunny southern california and it gets perfect for them but if they are grown in ideal conditions they get very poky and thorny but if you grow them in a little shade they get much softer.
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-HGDB20-Reusable-Planting-20-Gallon/dp/B004S0KVFW/ref=pd_sim_lg_1
I grow them in part shade because I live in sunny southern california and it gets perfect for them but if they are grown in ideal conditions they get very poky and thorny but if you grow them in a little shade they get much softer.