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I planted my pumpkin on May 31. I have been watering daily and giving it fish fertilizer twice a week. The vine is about 4 1/2 ft now and there is a pumpkin. No flowers. Do I just need to cut the pumpkin off.

7/5/2012 12:00:54 AM

East Jordan, MI

It needs pollen from males to get pollinated or it will die anyway and 4.5 ft is too small of a plant to set a pumpkin on in my opinion. The plant itself might realize this and abort it anyway.

If you are shooting for the best you can do I'd cut it off and wait till you get one at least 10 ft out. The plants are usually well established and capable of growing a very respectable fruit by then.

7/5/2012 1:24:40 AM

Germany

There were some big ones grown at positions closer to the stump, somewhere between 10 and 8 ft. Therefore, I´d recommend you wait for the main to grow and you pollinate everything from 8 ft on (because of your late start I wouldn´t suggest to wait too long for the main vine to grow...it might happen that there´s a nice female at 8 ft, and the next maybe emerges at 14 ft...and if the latter suffers deformation or pollination doesn´t take, you would have to wait for another couple of days for the next pollination). Then you look if the first or second pumpkin looks fine, and calculate the days from pollination until weigh-off or the date of your first danger of frost. AGs are still growing nicely between day 60 and day 80 (some continue to grow nicely even further). Therefore, better let an early pollinated one grow for 80 or 90 days rather than waiting for another two weeks before you might have another successfully pollinated one, which could then grow for only 65 or 70 days. That´s at least my opinion. Even if they gave the same result (want to say if long vine, less days = same pumpkin weight like on short vine and more days), the version with more days and potentially slower growth bears less risk of bad splits (...again, that´s at least my opinion). Also, imagine your plant might die of a disease in early September...also a good idea having gotten a horse into the race at the right time.

7/5/2012 5:03:00 AM

Colorado

Plants young yet-hasnt hit puberty.In another 10 days youll have a much bigger plant to work with.

7/5/2012 1:40:40 PM