Growing Pumpkins

[wiswash]

We planted 3 pumpkin plant this year, all within a few feet of each other. Had a healthy bunch of blossoms, at least 2, maybe more. But we got only one pumpkin and all the other blossoms just sat there and looked nice. Dont these flowers cross pollinate with each other, or what? How can I get more pumpkins? Thanks.

Wiscsonin

 

[vfem]

Well, it sounds like it could have been a couple things. Pumpkins put off 2 kinds of blooms... male and female. You need the male to pollinate the female, and the female will produce the pumpkin. You should have gotten dozen of blooms of the male, and only a few blooms of the female.... if you only got a few blooms it could be possible they were all male.

Dryness, exceptional heat, heavy bug attacks... can all effect the vine and cause a less then stellar performance.

Mine met a similar fate to a vine borer bug, I had 6 vines, only 2 pumpkins and then they ALL died due to the distress for the damage from the bugs. They were very delicate!

Maybe next year we'll get luckier!

P.s. -

 

[wiswash]

So, is there a way to tell, by appearance, what males and females look like? Lets recollect my memory here. From high school biology 35 years ago. I think one had stamens, that would be the male, as the stamens held the pollen, I think.
I dont recall seeing any stress issues. The plants looked healthy enough. But June was dry and warm, mid to high 80s.

Was wondering too, if there is enough pollenation going on from bees and bugs, or something??

 

[wifezilla]

I have wonderful pumpkin and butternut squash vines and no fruit. Why? As soon as a little pumpkin or squash appears, a squirrel eats it.

Have I mentioned before that I HATE SQUIRRELS!!!!?!?!

 

[bid]

So, is there a way to tell, by appearance, what males and females look like?

The female flowers will have a tiny little pumpkin (the same goes for squashes, cucumbers, melons...). The male flowers are much more abundant and are the first to appear.

This seemed a rather poor year for me on both squash and pumpkins as the yield was wayyyy down from last year. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe just not a good year in my/your area for those particular vegetables?

 

[Ariel301]

I have wonderful pumpkin and butternut squash vines and no fruit. Why? As soon as a little pumpkin or squash appears, a squirrel eats it.

Have I mentioned before that I HATE SQUIRRELS!!!!?!?!

I have the same problem! When I see a little fruit developing, I wrap it loosely in a bag made of plastic netting (you can buy some mesh type fabric from a craft store, or those mesh bags onions come in from the grocery store work nicely too) to keep the squirrels away. I have to do this with all squashes/melons/cucumbers/pumpkins, and also tomatoes.

Female squash/pumpkin flowers will be a flower coming out of a mini fruit. If the flower is fertilized, the fruit develops, if not, it rots and falls off. Male flowers are just flowers attached right to a stem.

 

[wifezilla]

Great idea Ariel. I will do that next year. Thanks!!

 

[HLAC]

I grew oodles of squash this year but just a handful of what most people consider pumpkins. (The orange things)

I am blessed with lots of bees and not so blessed with massive quantities of corn root worm beetles. The only good thing about the root worm beetles is that if a bee should miss the squash flowers, the beetles will pollinate it. So pollination was never a problem. In some varieties of squash, the really hot days caused the female flowers to drop.

I try to keep the soil very fertile with composted manure and burying lots and lots of fish.

Overall I had a pretty good year with the squash.

This is about a quarter of the crop.

This is mostly kabocha squash. Green kabocha and orange kabocha. Butternuts and argonaut squash in the background.

Here are some more, these all went to the food pantry. The orange ones are pie pumkins, the white ones are neck pumpkins.

 

[Tomatoes&Things]

HLAC,

How big of an area were those grown in?

 

[HLAC]

All the squash = maybe 30,000 sq feet. The green kabocha are space hogs. So were the argonauts. The orange kabocha weren't too bad and the acorns and butternut didn't (comparatively) take up much space.

The pie pumpkins, neck pumpkins, and a few novelty varieties were planted here and there amongst everything else. Because the soil is so fertile, the plants being crowded wasn't a problem but trying to walk through parts of the garden was almost impossible.

Here are some more pictures.

One patch when the plants were little. They seem like they're miles apart when I plant them.

Then they fill in.

Harvest time: