Thank you for this easy to follow video on pumpkin growing. My vine is finally up and going strong and I'm at the flower stage so needed some more info to go forward and this video is excellent , easy to understand and includes all relevant information without over doing it. Great video, cheers
As alyways this was very informative. Sometimes pumpkins grow in my garden although I did not sow them but I let them grow. Still either no fruits or they rot. So this information is very useful to me. Thank you.
Growing vertically is great for smaller spaces and works well in maximising larger spaces as well. You can grow shde lovers beneath them. Thanks for watching....
Very good video Johnny a I've been having this problem where my little babies will get so big they would turn yellow and the flower would never open I've been scratching my head trying everything I didn't think of this until I saw your video thanks for the idea I hope it works out for me
For me if I didn't get to it by about 11am(EasternS.T.) my flowers were already closed up, an when I was a night hawk, I would just wait up till 4-6am and my flowers were already opened
thanks for the infomation. i have long vines, and lots of flowers. but not a single fruit. all flowers fall off. I have a lot of yellow beetles. I sprayed neem oil mixed with liquid soap and water , they r still there. i sometimes take a brrom and chase them away
Flowers with no fruit usually mean a lack of pollinators (bees and similar), you can hand pollinate by hand using a small paintbrush. The yellow beetles, not sure what they are, so you would need to identify them.
Looks like you've got your pumpkins growing on top of some kind of groundcover like purslane, eh? Was thinking of growing mine on a groundcover of creeping thyme out here in arizona. What you think?
Would you use the same male flower on multiple females? Or do you try to do one male per female? Or should you use multiple males on all the females to ensure you get pumpkins? I’m new to gardening, and am ambitiously trying pumpkins as one of my first fruits! I’m really excited. I’ve been reading up, and decided to ensure I don’t have pests destroy my plant before it even has a chance, I’m going to cover it with plant cover, and then hand pollinate when time. That way I get at least one pumpkin.
We tend to mix it up as much as possible, however no real method. One flower on a few, another on the same few different order is about it for our method... seems to work. Maybe others have different opinions....
My question not answered. Can you help? I have thousands of male flowers on my pumkin plants but my female flowers never make it to the flowering stage or the just fall or yellow before even opening? What causes this
Usually flowers falling off before opening is because of stress, Reasons could be 1. To cold. 2. To hot. 3.Lack of water. It can also be because the plant is still a little young to support the production of fruit. Difficult to tell without seeing the vines.
@@johnnyAGardening ok this helps. Tempatures here in california were in the high 90s and 100s now its low 90s high 80s. Old leafs are yellowish new growth looks ok?
Hi! I finally had a female flower, pollinated it and then it was growing so well. Then we had a ton of rain ( hurricane) and the next thing I know the little pumpkin rotted. Did it get too much water? The little pumpkin was not on the ground.
the original part of my vine is now dead but beyond the pumpkin is a new green vine. Can I cut off the dead part of the vine without hurting the rest of the vine?
Not something we have ever tried, I am guessing that the vine has sent down roots further on which is usual. If the actual stem itself is dead, I guess you could try that, however if its just the leaves that are dead then no.
Enjoyed the video, have been trying to grow pumpkins for a decade, your information will help immensley, thank you. I do have one question. Seems the male flowers open up much ealier and I'm wondering if the pollen can be saved in a bag to pollinate female flowers that show up later on?
We have never tried that - Usually the first flowers are male, however after the female flowers begin appearing more male flowers should appear as well. So sorry we cant really help with the saving of the pollen
@@johnnyAGardening Thank you, will try saving the pollen to pollinate a few but also wait until both flowers are out and pollinate a few that way as well. I'm wondering if the pollen from the ealier flowers will help make earlier plants etc. P.S. You likely know this already, the flowers are great added to salads or just by themselves.
Thats a great question we need to address. In short, we use a horticultural soap spray for a lot of pests, aphids, mites and others. Always spray in the evening when the pollinators have finished for the day. Will try to a video together on this very soon.
My pumpkins are broke. I have male only flowers. And the buds get huge then fall off by evening. The vines themselves are taking over the entire yard. Idk why there are no female flowers
Hello Bridgette, the male flowers appear first, usually around 2 week before the female flowers. Once the female flowers appear then things should start to happen. If no pollinators are around then start hand pollinating when those female flowers first appear. Should be plenty of both males and females at this time...
Never tried it but should be OK. The sand should be free draining . We do prefer a thin board. The idea is to keep the bottom of the pumpkin dry to prevent rot. Let us know how it goes.
The main thing why my pumpkin doesn't grow is, the ants eat all pollen grains. So my question is how can we prevent them from ants without using pesticides? Please answer.
What is causing my female flowers to drop even after hand pollenation? No matter how hard I try, they just keep dropping. The female flowers are usually full of ants when I find them. The plants themselves are seemingly growing well and otherwise healthy. Any tips?
The flowers need to be pollinated the day that they open, it sounds like you are doing this. Excessive nitrogen as flowers form can be a problem as well, so check your fertiliser use. The ants can cause problems, you can use food grade diatomaceous earth on the ant trails . Cinnamon is also said to deter ants. Let us know if one of these sounds like it will help.
You say you don't use pesticides; can you recommend a natural method to keep pests away from pumpkin plants? Every year, we seem to get aphids and small, oval-shaped yellow and black striped bugs that want to destroy the plants. We have quite a large pumpkin patch this year so hand-picking them off isn't very doable. Any advice is appreciated.
For aphids we use a horticultural soap spray. You can make your own with 2 - 3 teaspoons of pure natural soap flakes and about 500ml (1 pint or 16 fl oz US) of water. Dissolve the soap in warm water, add cold water and use a spray bottle.
Is it only female flowers that turn into fruit? If so once I have pollinated the female flower can I remove all the other make flowers so its energy goes into the fruit?
I had a question about the female flowers in general. I am growing a few Big Max (larger size variety) pumpkin plants and at first, I was getting a lot of female flowers that opened way before the males did, so they didn't pollinate, is this typical to happen? Second, will the size of the fruit at time of pollination give you an idea of how Large the pumpkin will be? Only asking because I had a few that were golf ball sized and a couple that were slightly larger than that (they didn't pollinate so I wouldn't of found out) and was just curious if that meant they would be large or small pumpkins? Right now I have one that will pollinate tomorrow, but the fruit seems small, so I'm wondering if it will be a small pumpkin. Hope this makes sense, I don't know how else to ask lol.
You cant fix the broken anther, just leave it and hope. The size of the small fruit is not really a true indication of the final size of the pumpkin, however pumpkins do differ in size on the same plant. Fertiliser, water and sun, so its these resources that determine the final size. Also, if you have lots of pumpkins on the one vine, some people thin to get larger fruit. We dont, the vines will send down extra roots along the way, we fertilise at these ponys as well as at the main stem. However, we still get some big and some small.