It's been quite a while since my last post. But the Burpee specialist suggested, I assess where I had planted my pumpkins/squash plants. They were in my back yard and on the property line, I used a chain link fence, between my neighbor and I, as support. Unfortunately, the back of the neighbors house, is 3' from the fence, on their side. So, the plants didn't get any early morning sun. They got sun from noon, til sunset, though. Another thing that went against them was, the neighbor Didn't like my using the fence for support and when she had her roof done, she had them put up her gutters, with a new down spout at the north western corner of her house, as well as the gutter that had been at the south western corner. The South one, was aimed to drain to the driveway and then to the street... no problem. The new one, she had them aim it to the fence. There is a cement walkway, between the fence and her house... so on her side of the fence, it's a 3' wide walkway, the length of the fence... 50'. We asked her politely, if she could have the gutters installed the old way, as the new down spout, shed water onto our property and now where I had my plants planted, it was a swamp, when it rains. Her response was "too bad". So the Burped specialist suggested a raised bed and that the problem was, that the Plants had a problem with mold. Not enough morning sun and the area, a little too moist... poor drainage. They suggested dormant oil spray, early in the growing season and perhaps weekly applications, soon after starting to spray them. I did that the following yr. I purchased some neem oil spray. It did work, as long as I kept up with the spraying. Also, something to keep in mind... most of the blossoms are MALE and will drop off after 3 or 4 days and Some are FEMALE. The female blossoms, will produce the fruit. After spraying with the oil spray (follow directions on How to apply) I had up to 8 fruit/pumpkins on a 15' vine. I also added a fertilizer mix, when planting... regular vegetable fertilizer and added some blood meal and bone meal. They looked great. But midseason, I stopped spraying (mistake) ... I should have kept spraying, til harvest. The week after I stopped spraying, the mold came back with a vengeance. A lot of mold defoliates the plant and not enough photosynthesis, to create the fruit. So the plant will drop the forming fruit. I still have problems with the neighbor... she tries anything to agrivate us. She uses a leaf blower and blows anything and everything thru our chain link fence, onto property. If she can't get it thru it, it goes over it. Including all her cigarette buts! I saw some ideas on Pinterest for a lattice privacy screen.. but we have a building code that fences can't be higher than 6'. So, next yr. I think I will "try" making out of pallet wood, a planter box with a lattice privacy screen on it. I think if I put the boxes on heavy duty wheels, so they can be moved about, I "might be able" to get past the building code, on the height limit of 6' feet and go up to 8' high and make enough boxes to line my side of the chain link fence. I really miss growing my own pumpkins, especially the Lumina... that one is a very nice sweet pumpkin for making pies. :-) Instead of making raised beds for planting, for better drainage, I'll have them in planter boxes with lattice panels for support and with the boxes on wheels, I'll be able to move them to another location, if I need to. We'll see how that works out for the plants and hopefully I won't get in trouble with the town. Technically, they would planter boxes and not a fence. I'll update next yr, in the middle of growing season, as to how all is going and if things worked out. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everyone :-)

Normal silvering of the leaves.

good evening!!! i am not an expert, but i love to raise pumpkins, the uglier the better! i do not need to fertilize, my soil here seems to be very nitrogen rich. as said above, you will have MANY male flowers, and a few females. do you have more than one plant? i try to have at the very least two of each kind three is best for cross pollination...earwigs, ants, natts, flies wasps also pollinate. as said above you can hand pollinate, be sure that the dew has dried, be sure the sun has dried the pollen. snip the male flower or use a q-tip then you know you have lots of yellow pollen. i do not clip vines until i see that the female is growing, then i clip about 6 inches from the growth, if i have more that one vine that is. i measure my pumpkins, and good growth is 1/4 inch a day. when they start to orange up, they stop growth. good luck!!!! pictire is one of my female peanut pumpkins....

I don't know if it will work for you or not, but there were no usable male flowers open when my last female flower opened. I took one of the closed male flowers that were starting to "ripen" and getting ready to open and peeled the flower petals off of it. I rubbed it with my finger to be safe and some pollen came off even though it was not yet open. The best thing I can say to do if you're worried about it, is to just test it. Worse comes to worse you cut a male flower for nothing. Oh well, there will be more later. Or, if you don't want to do that, you can wait. Everyone else is right, there will be plenty of male and female flowers later. My watermelon plant did that. My female flowers opened first and started dying off. I know, it's odd and I couldn't figure out why. Anyways, the male flowers came a bit after that and I had lots of personal sized watermelon. Good luck to you and keep up hope!