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Chatham Ontario Canada

I have this monster of a plant growing in my garden and it may just take over the entire back yard. If its not too late how many secondaries should I be hacking off and what should I put my little baby on so he doesn't rot?

7/27/2006 12:14:33 PM

Syracuse, NY

GO HERE:

http://henryholman.homestead.com/pumpkins.html

look at "Pruning Rules"

you will learn much, my son, or daughter, for that matter.

COOL email address, by the weigh!

umm, my preference is to cut-off every other vine
on each side of the plant, each side keeping the other side's alternately-growing vines.

so, example, on the left side i might chop off the very first vine, then keep vine #2, #4, #6, etc.
on the OTHER side, i would keep the very first vine, and
then keep #3, # 5, #7, and so on.
maybe some growers like to chop off the first two
big secondaries on each side and then keep every other
vine on BOTH sides WITHOUT alternating:
chop off #1 and #2 on both sides and then keep
both sides' # 3, #5, #7, and so on.
you will get many techniques thrown at you soon, and
this one that i do is ALWAYS plant-specific (ANY plant
might have a pumpkin on one of the vines that i had INTENDED
to chop off, and with a pumpkin on a vine, i would not chop it off unless all my other pumpkins were set for the season already) anyway, look at the Holman site and
it will be very interesting to you and everyone---eric g

PS----Housing insulation from Home Depot to put under your pumpkin...4' X 8' sheets at 1 inch thick, it has aluminum foil on both sides of it>>>cut one in half and 4 X 4 is big enough for any pumpkin. get this material under your fruit and i myself have never had any problems from it. this year i may put sand on this material as well, but it has not been necessary. you can also JUST use sand, and lots of it,
to allow your fruit to develop better and allow you to move the fruit to prevent stem stress--eric g

7/27/2006 1:31:12 PM

hamilton,Ontario

..based on these principles and were we are now in the season. I finally have my only pumpkin pollinated on a secondary vine approx the fouth one up from the stump. The main vine was terminated approx 14 feet. The pumpkin has been growing around 2" nite for the last few night s and may hit 5 inches today.Should I be terminating any of the secondaries that have grown or are currently growing??..thoughts....????

7/27/2006 4:56:14 PM

Syracuse, NY

i would say that wherever the physical boundaries of your patch are, and no greater in length than 15 feet, are where
secondary vines should be terminated.
so if your patch is 30 feet wide per plant, for example,
you would terminate each secondary vine at that point, at the edge of the patch, which would be 15 feet for each vine on each side of the plant.
concerning the secondaries' growth and since the main is terminated, i would gradually, over a few days,
terminate the vines that have reached their limits, and the ones that are still shorter and still growing should be removed as per the above every-other-vine technique (that is just MYYYYYYY way of doing it, nothing carved in stone) and be sure to limit sharply the number of fruits that show up, and be sure to not allow any TERTIARY growth (vines that grow out of secondaries). once this is done, it can be purely maintenance, although i have never achieved THAT, lol----hope this helps.

7/27/2006 6:39:42 PM

Owensboro, Ky.

If no secondary termination has been done up to this point, dont!!!! do it all at once!!!!! I did it last year and blew one up overnight. Terminate one or two secondaries per day. I am convinced that big changes bring on big problems. Peace, Wayne

7/28/2006 12:07:29 AM

Midwest

This is a good post! Great advise!
Thanks!
Greg

7/28/2006 1:24:48 PM