Help for an Out Of Control Pumpkin Plant!

[Jo-Anne]

My DD and I planted a pumpkin seed (or two!) as an experiment in her tiny garden along the side of our house. It gets lots of sun. The plant has now overtaken the entire garden and shows no signs of stopping! I know nothing about pumpkins and thought we'd be lucky to get one pumpkin out of this planting! There must be about 20 yellow flowers on the stocks and they just keep expanding over anything including the walkway. We planted it about 50 days ago. Should I be cutting it back? If so, how do I know where to cut back? We'd really like at least one pumpkin out of this monster!

 

[bumcat]

We use to pick some of the flowers,dip them in egg and flour and fry them, pumpkins do take a lot of space.

 

[Snowwark]

Hi Jo-anne, welcome back!

Bumcat is right, pumpkins do take up a lot of space. I just read that a single vine can grow as long as 30'!!

Below is a link with info on pumpkins. It tells you how to train them, and also how to prune them. I hope it helps you to get your monster under control!

Growing Pumpkins

Bumcat, I've never heard of eating pumpkin flowers. What do they taste like?

 

[Mamu]

JoAnn hate to be the barer of disappointing news. Most of the flowers are probably males.

Pumpkins produce 2 flowers, a male flower (flower is at the end of a straight stem) female (flower is at the end of a small green ball)

I'm sure you will get lots of pumpkins out of the plants, but these first flowers are usually males, I'm sure if you look closely you will find a few small pumpkins.

I agree they get huge and over take the yard. I've never grown them because of this reason. Good luck with the pumpkins.

 

[bumcat]

Snowwark - I haven't had any in yrs since they take up so much space to grow but they kind of remind me of the yellow squash but real thin, not sure how else to describe it. I thought my friend was nuts when she told me about it!!

 

[Mamu]

Kim I use the squash flowers (only males) they are really good.

Sometimes I just saute them, Sometimes I cool them like bumkcat (dipped and fried) Sometimes I stuff them with a bread and Parmesan Cheese filling but most of the times I like them in a frittata. They are yummy.

 

[bumcat]

Mamu - how do you know which are males? I never did the squash because I was afraid they wouldn't grow if we ate the flowers. sounds good!!

 

[Mamu]

The males flowers are at the end of a straight stem. The females flowers are at the end of tiny squash. You can tell by looking at a few plants.

The squashes are very small but you can tell their squashes.

 

[bumcat]

thanks mamu, we enjoy growing squash, i'll have to try the flowers!!

 

[Jo-Anne]

This board is so helpful....many thanks for all your advice! Wouldn't you know it...those darn males tricking me into thinking I was going to have a hundred pumpkins...typical!!

 

[Snowwark]

LOL Jo-anne!

One day I'm going to have to try the flowers, they sound intriguing.