Topic: Pumpkins - removing flowers??

[antipodes]

My pumpkins are becoming rapidly triffid like. They seem to have LOTS of flowers - surely they will not all become pumpkins? Is there anything I should do to inhibit their growth? If I cut off the end, will that kill the plant or damage it? Should I leave all the flowers on it or reduce the numbers? I have Jap, Butternut and Queensland Blue pumpkins.
Thanks!

[Tee Gee]

I allow a maximum of three pumpkins per plant.

Once I have secured them by manual pollination (see here; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Pollination/Pollination/pollination.html

I stop the leaders (runners)

[Columbus]

Hi Antipodes, Hi all,  :)

I never limit them as I`m growing for quantity not size and once the plants are too big for slugs to eat through the stems I pay them the minimum of attention.
I put a slate or something under the pumpkin if I see it to keep it dry on the bottom. When the weather is very dry in July and August I flood the whole patch but individual plants and their fruit are usually ignored most of the time, until harvest,

This year I have a new half plot which apart from courgettes and marrow is ringed with pumpkin, decorative gourds and butternut squash plants all aimed towards the middle. I am hoping they will make a interweaving mass of leaves and squash.

Mostly they are used at hallowe`en and they make fantastic chutney.
I eat the smallest ones in stew. I easily get more than I need and I have
a lot of fun with them for not much work.

Col

[Suzanne]

I don't limit mine either as again growing for quantity - I want enough to last me through the winter and well into spring. I ate the last one from 2007 harvest in May this year. Thye are one of my favourites as they keep so well - I have "dried" a Turks Turban from last year as it was really pretty and it is still in the conservatory - inedible now but decorative.

[Duke Ellington]

Tee Gee this is first time I have seen this process explained so simply and clearly. Other web sites and books explain but without pictures. When you are new to growing vegetables you need good diagrams. Great pictures ...Thankyou

Duke

[antipodes]

OMG pumpkins have RUDE BITS!!!!!!!!!!

So if I want lots of pumpkins (I agree, I want quantity not size, best to bank on having a few and losing some along the way!), I have to..dare i say it... give them an artifical bonk??

(sounds of yours truly fainting to the ground)

oh well, any good reputation I may have had on my site will go down the drain if I have to start encouraging vegetable sex!!!

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

thanks for those tips, yes I can see where I can put some straw etc under the pumpkins and perhgpas on one or two, nipping off the end would not be a bad idea.

[Duke Ellington]

Antipodes dont forget to play some Barry White...you need to create the right atmosphere!! hehehehe

Duke ;D