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meganlanephotos

Only one pumpkin growing on my plant??

meganlanephotos
8 years ago

Hello!!


I have a Jarrahdale Blue Pumpkin Plant (C. Maxima) growing in my backyard this year. It is my first time growing pumpkins. Well, last year I planted pumpkin seeds but the five vines that germinated only grew to about 7" long, formed 2 flowers each and died. Perhaps because I didn't amend the soil, or use any compost. Anyway, this year I only planted two seeds. One Jarrahdale and one Porcelain Doll. My 4 year and daughter and I really wanted a pink and blue pumpkin.


I planted the Jarrahdale seed in my veggie garden bed, amongst other vegetables. My daughter planted the Porcelian Doll seed in the wildflower garden.. her choice, don't know why! This was also our first year really growing any veggies (other than green beans.) In the beginning of April, I put compost, soil amendment and fertilizer in the garden bed. I planted seeds, and seedlings accordingly. I've already harvested a ton of broccolli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, rhubarb, peas and green beans, artichoke, etc. I can't believe how well everything did since usually my veggies fail. I guess amending my soil made all the difference.


HERE'S THE PROBLEM: The pumpkins were the thing we are most excited about. We wanted them to work so badly!! We planted the seeds at the end of May. We're in NY, zone 7. The Porcelain Doll plant is about 18" long and began forming buds 10 days a go. First flower opened yesterday. So far, seems good. The Jarrahdale plant is massive. It is well over 6' long. Not knowing how big it would get, I didn't really give it enough space to grow. All of my veggies were/are crowded together, pushing up against one another.. but that didn't effect their yield. Just made it harder for me to harvest. My yard is super small, only about 300sq ft. Anyway, the Jarrahdale's tendrils began climbing up my shutter fence a few weeks a go. It looked really beautiful. The first pumpkin appeared beneath a flower bud about 20 days a go. It's grown A LOT since then. A second pumpkin appeared about a week a go. I noticed yesterday that the second pumpkin (which grew to maybe the size of a kiwi) had gotten really soft and yellow. Seems to have failed for some reason? The first pumpkin is still doing great, firm, growing bigger by the day, etc. Flowers are still blooming, lots of them.. Mostly males, I assume. There is always bees inside the flowers. We get a lot of bees and butterflies in our yard because of the wildflower garden and my gigantic butterfly bush. The pollinators love it.


QUESTION: Why is my huge plant working to only grow one pumpkin?? Will more appear? The same thing happened with my cucumber plant. It didn't grow that big, maybe 2 1/2' tall. It flowers, formed maybe seven 1" cukes.. one of which grew to about 15" long. It was healthy and ripe, so I harvested it. The rest of the ones that had formed shriveled up and got mushy. Now my pumpkin is doing the same thing, basically. What the heck is happening?? What'd I do wrong? Is it the lack of space? It seems to be making space for itself, growing up the fence.. sprawling out of the garden bed into my lawn, lol. Yesterday I saw that the vine had fell off of the fence. The larger pumpkin must've became to heavy for the tendrils to support it onto the fence. The pumpkin was still in tact, no visible damage.. but it was resting on the dirt. I didn't want bugs to bother it or rot so I put a bucket upside down in the bed and placed the pumpkin on top of it. The pumpkin has been shaded by other leaves for most of its life. I only fertilized pre-planting seeds.. should I have done it a second time? I heard once that it should be done when the veggies start to flower. I didn't have any extra fertilizer, and I had forgotten.. plus, everything was growing so well.. so I didn't deem it necessary. Maybe I should've?


Sorry for the long, detailed post. I wanted to give all the info necessary to form a diagnosis/opinion about this. Do you think the existing pumpkin will succeed? How long until it is ripe? Any advice relevant to my problem or tips for growing pumpkins successfully are welcome and appreciated. Thank you SO much!!! :)



1. Picture of pumpkin vine 7 days a go when it was growing up shutter fence. You can see the lack of space it has. Roots are down in garden bed. It's also growing on ground, out of garden bed past cone flowers.

2. Picture of pumpkin now placed on bucket. 1 day a go




3. Picture of pumpkin 5 days a go, when still being held up on fence by tendrils.

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