Growing
Watering
Pumpkins need about 1-inch of water per week, either from your hose or rainfall. For best results, water plants deeply in the morning and on very hot afternoons — especially during fruit set — and do your best to direct water straight to the plant roots. Keeping pumpkins leaves dry is one of the best ways to avoid rot and common diseases like powdery mildew.
Fertilizing
Blending compost or aged manure into the soil before planting helps pumpkins grow better and encourages larger fruit production. After that, side-dress plants with additional aged manure or compost mixed with water as needed and feed with a high nitrogen fertilizer when the plants are about 1-foot tall and the vines are just about to run. When flower buds form, switch to a high phosphorus fertilizer to fuel rapid pumpkin growth.
Pruning or Maintenance
Covering pumpkins with row covers early in the season can reduce some pest problems, but covers need to be removed before flowering to allow for pollination. Bees and other pollinators are essential for pumpkin growth, so avoid using pesticides whenever possible and consider growing flowering companion plants near pumpkins to increase pollinator activity. Placing a bee house in your garden is an effective way to draw bees in too.
Careful pruning can reduce disease, increase fruit size, and is key if you want to grow prize winning pumpkins. To do this, pinch off the fuzzy ends of pumpkin vines after a few pumpkins form to stop vine growth and focus the plant’s energy on fruiting. Once the fruit develops, remove all but the best 1 to 3 pumpkins per plant as well as all late blooming flowers, prune the main and secondary vines to 10 to 15 feet, cut away the smaller, tertiary vines, and bury the cut vine tips in the soil to optimize fruit development.
As the fruit matures, turn pumpkins carefully to encourage even growth. Placing a thin board, stone, or piece of tile under pumpkins can protect fruit from rot and pest damage as well.
Tip: If your first flowers aren’t forming fruits, that’s normal. Both male and female blossoms need to open for pollination to occur. Patience is key!
Seasonal Care
Maintaining a regular watering and fertilizing regimen is essential if you want to grow the best pumpkins. It’s also a good idea to add mulch around plants to retain moisture and suppress weeds. When needed, weed carefully to avoid damaging delicate pumpkin roots and vines.
If you’re growing pumpkins on a trellis, support developing fruit with a hammock or old nylon stocking to prevent vine breaks.
Types
Pumpkins come in different sizes and colors and can be used for different purposes. Athough all pumpkins are technically edible, some are better for carving or display, while others are ideal for cooking. Knowing how you’d like to use pumpkins will help you select the very best varieties for your goals!
- Miniature pumpkins like ‘Jack Be Little’ and ‘We-B-Little’ are great for ornamental use and small spaces. They’re also super productive and easy to grow.
- Carving pumpkins like ‘Autumn Gold’ or ‘Merlin’ are the pumpkins you want for jack-o-lanterns.
- Pie pumpkins like ‘Sugar Treat’ and ‘Peanut Pumpkin’ are prized for their sweet flesh and can be used for pies, soups, curries, and purees.
There is a chance that the vine will recover, as long as the break doesn't block all of the vessels in the plant that allow transport of water and plant nutrients, and as long diseases and pests don't set in.
If the vine runs along the ground, as soon as you can, dig a depression underneath the broken area, wide enough to cover the break, and as far along the stem until just after the next leaf node (where the leaves emerge from the stem). Gently place the broken vine into the depression, making sure the broken stem fits as closely as possible to the original alignment. Cover the stem with soil--make sure the entire break is covered as well as one leaf node where leaves are emerging. Do not press the soil down. Water the area periodically. Roots may eventually emerge at the leaf node.
Good luck!
Hi Steve, You did the right thing. We plant multiple seeds because they do not always germinate. Once they do, select 2 of the healthiest and thin out the rest. I know it's hard but you have to "kill" the seedlings so that the others can grow. Pumpkins do not like to be moved or cultivated once planted so we would not advise digging them up.
Hi, Steven: You most certainly can grow pumpkins from latticework or a trellis. The challenge always remains to support the weight of the developing pumpkin if it starts to grow up in the air. If you can somehow identify which ones you don't want, you can just cut them off or pinch off blooms. We would just let everything grow and have some fun with it, seeing which blooms seem to be healthiest and then pinching off others to focus that plant's energy on the best fruit. Thanks for asking!
You'll get a pound of seed from twenty pumpkins.
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