I'm amazed at these volunteer Pumpkins, now I have questions

Beansie_time · Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:13 pm

last fall a pumpkin I bought for my daughter fell off our back deck and splattered below. I left it there because if fell near a pile of leaves and pulled weeds and I was pretty much checked out on yardwork for the year.
I had completely forgotten about it until earlier this week when I started cleaning up the weeds and such that had sprung up around the deck since we are having people over for a bbq this weekend.
I was very surprised to find FIVE very strong pumpkin plants growing under the deck presumably from the seeds of that splattered pumpkin. They had more male and female flowers about to open on them than any of the pumpkin plants in my garden. They could not stay under the deck because I wanted to get it cleaned out under there, and there was no other room in the garden, so I bought a few bags of potting soil and transplanted the three strongest ones into some five gallon pickle buckets I had.
They've been in four days now and are still looking strong, many of the flowers have opened. I have no idea if they'll produce fruit in those buckets, or if they do what ind of pumpkins they will be, but I was amazed that they looked so good coming from lousy soil in lousy sunlight.
At the very least the extra flowers will be good for pollinating my existing pumpkins, and if I get something out of these bucket pumpkins It'll be a bonus.

soil · Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:36 pm

we had these volunteer pumpkins last year that just grew like monsters. I think I pulled over 50 fruits from those plants.

ill have to say though, once you transplanted them, you killed what they had going for them. which was a nice big taproot. either way enjoy!

Beansie_time · Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:56 pm

Well I put them into the buckets with about a football sized root ball each. I tried to preserve as much of the roots as possible. I don't expect them to do anything, but I hope they at least keep flowering to provide more pollination.

soil · Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:52 pm

I'm sure they will continue on and produce good food.

I was just saying that the tap rooted volunteers are real lazy for the gardener. they usually need very little in the way of care. once you cut that tap root you have to baby it more.

Beansie_time · Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:49 pm

So one of these has started growing a fruit, but it looks a little odd to me.
[img]https://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg40/beansie_time/IMAG0333.jpg[/img]
I'm thinking the farm I bought the pumpkin that these seeds came from may have cross pollinated it with something else. Or maybe I'm just clueless since I've never grown pumpkins before and they all start out two-tone. Is this going to end up just giving me gourds?

Ladybug027 · Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:24 pm

That is so neat, you finding a surprise like that. I have never grown pumpkins, next year will be my first so I can't help you with the two tone question, but good luck, you may want to do a little internet research on it if you can't find a answer.

SPierce · Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:53 pm

Ladybug027 wrote:That is so neat, you finding a surprise like that. I have never grown pumpkins, next year will be my first so I can't help you with the two tone question, but good luck, you may want to do a little internet research on it if you can't find a answer.

it looks like it crossed with a fancy gourd! I'd be interested to see how it turns out!

Beansie_time · Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:57 pm

I'm going to let it grow and see what comes out, I was just hoping for something edible. Oh well, my wife can put it on the front porch at halloween.

gixxerific · Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:21 pm

Looks like it crossed to me as well.

And good luck to you. But it is know that vining crops don't like being transplanted as Soil stated. But what do you have to loose in my mentality.

I have a bunch of this and that growing out of my compost pile, will I cut them down, HECK NO. In fact I was thinking about tying up some of the tomato volunteers today.

Volunteers rule! let it go and good luck with it.

Fig3825 · Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:44 pm

I threw some pumpkin seeds down in a garden patch for my father in law. Almost all of the seeds germinated and there are now plants that stretch over nearly 15' and they have almost taken over the entire garden. They are growing through his fence and into his yard. They are going nuts and he's doing nothing for them aside from watering...