Finally a pumpkin

Hi,

Well we finally have a little pumpkin starting. It's about the size of a plum but seems very healthy. I noticed that this one was bigger than the other females that failed to start even before the flower opened. Seems like a lot of female flowers are starting to show up now.

Still plenty of growing time left so hopefully we will get a nice pumpkin.

How many pumpkins should I allow to grow on one vine? I don't care about growing a giant but I would like a good size pumpkin we can use for halloween.

If I start to remove some of the new female flowers when should that be done? Should I wait until they flower or just remove them as soon as I see them?

Thanks for any tips.

Steve

Reply to
szeik
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If you are going to remove flowers, you might as well do it as soon as you see them forming. Don't be in a rush to start doing that though. I've seen pumpkins get as large as 5 or 6 inches across and then collapse and rot. I suppose this happens when the flower barely gets pollinated and isn't forming enough seeds to be worth continuing on. It also seems to happen after a vine has formed some pumpkins and doesn't have the strength to complete more. How many pumpkins to leave depends on the plant. My smaller ones can form several on one vine. The ones that produce big pumpkins usually set one or two and any that follow seem to abort. (I never remove flowers. I let the plant decide. If I was trying for the largest possible pumpkins, I would consider removing them.)

Steve (the one from the Adirondacks)

Reply to
Steve

I agree with the other Steve, let the plant decide. They normally set a certain number of fruit (the limit of what the plant can support under its growing conditions) and abort the rest.

(Of course if you were growing giant pumpkins for competition, you would have a bunch of vines and limit prune off to only one per plant. The plants will keep trying to set just one more fruit and that would make a difference if you were going for super-giant pumpkins.)

Reply to
Pat Kiewicz

I just let the plant go that way if one doesn't turn out there are more to choose from. One thing that I do I set the pumpkin on a piece of slab wood or even a can so it isn't sitting on the ground. I would have what I thought as being a great size pumpkin only to discover that the underneath was rotted or chewed.

Reply to
Lynn

Thanks for the tip. I was just looking at our little pumpkin and thinking about putting something under it to take some of the stress off of the stem. Right now it is sitting off the grond about 3 inches because of the way the stem is positioned. Once it gets bigger it will probably rotate the vine and eventually hit the ground but I was thinking of putting something under it like a piece of wood.

This would all be a lot easier if I had the kind of space one needs to really grow pumpkins. I have two main plants on the side of our house in a fairly narrow but long area. They are both running towards the front yard and into some shrubbery we have there so it's a little tricky managin the vines.

Steve

Reply to
szeik

Finally, FINALLY! We got some pumpkins to take off. Five or six gangly and watery greenhouse started seedlings (we thought they were gourds) put in a different location in town. Anacortes, in northern Puget Sound area. Now, what? they are for Halloween, if the teenagers don't get them first. A couple 18" or more and starting to turn color. The BIG question is: How do we collect and preserve them until Halloween? That's still a couple of months away!

HELP!

Lynn, anxious and sleepless (another Lynn...... Old Chief Lynn)

Reply to
Lynn Coffelt

Let the fruit continue ripening on the vine. The pumpkin will be mature enough to pick when the stem is very hard (like wood) and the rind is tough enought to resist piercing with a fingernail. Cut the pumpkin stem from the vine (the pumpkin won't keep it you break the stem off of it). Put it in a warm, sunny place for a couple of days to cure, then store it in the coolest part of your house or basement until ready to use.

Fully ripe and uninjured pumpkins and squash should store for months.

Edibility declines faster with some types (acorn, delicata, pie pumpkins) than others (butternut, buttercup, Hubbard). Some buttercup squashes actually improve with a bit of storage.

Reply to
Pat Kiewicz

Thanks! Lynn

Reply to
Lynn Coffelt

Hi Lynn let the fruit ripen as is. the plant will look just about dead all dried up and the pumpkin will have a very pretty orange color and be heavy. last year it was late Sept early Oct till we gathered ours ( zone 5) I picked a couple earlier than that but it went straight into pies :). this year we didn't even plant pumpkins or squash on purpose I threw out the old unused ones straight into the garden to decompost last winter.( I also have a couple of tomato plants that were a surprise plantings as well).

I heard once if you bath the pumpkin in a very weak javox solution then let dry well it will keep better through the winter but I never tried it myself. I usually cook it and freeze for later use.

Reply to
Lynn

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