Pumpkin plant not producing

2Seventy5

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I have a pumpkin plant which grew out of some buried waste. It's a fairly strong plant, has covered a large area, flowers often but only 1 pumpkin has grown so far. Because there are very few pollinating insects around at this time of year, I tried manually pollinating the female flowers, using both my finger and a small, soft artist brush. It just seems like nothing is working. Any helpful comments?
 

JoshW

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I have a pumpkin plant which grew out of some buried waste. It's a fairly strong plant, has covered a large area, flowers often but only 1 pumpkin has grown so far. Because there are very few pollinating insects around at this time of year, I tried manually pollinating the female flowers, using both my finger and a small, soft artist brush. It just seems like nothing is working. Any helpful comments?

My wife is a bit brutal when it comes to pollination. She tears off the male flower (*crosses legs*) and gets right in there with it. It works because we got 35 decent butternuts off the one vine, and more impressive because most of the local gardening groups on FB were getting 1 or 2 at best, sometimes none at all. Was a crap year for pumpkins here
 

DTK

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Hi 2Seventy5, I am certainly no expert but my best years for pumpkin harvests have been the "volunteers" that pop up in my garden when I top it up with compost, manure etc. This year with more rain than we usually get in Autumn I had some volunteers pop up and I allowed them to grow outside the veggie cage. I read somewhere that it is good to chop off the vine before it grows too far, allowing nutrients to go into fruit production. I did that this year, although I let them ramble through the pool garden as a ground cover to reduce weeds. I have not hand pollinated. We have harvested approximately 40 jap and about a dozen Qld blue. Good luck!

Dan
 

2Seventy5

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My wife is a bit brutal when it comes to pollination. She tears off the male flower (*crosses legs*) and gets right in there with it. It works because we got 35 decent butternuts off the one vine, and more impressive because most of the local gardening groups on FB were getting 1 or 2 at best, sometimes none at all. Was a crap year for pumpkins here
I did that with a couple of flowers, but I'm starting to wonder if it isn't more of a nutrition problem. The terrace that it came up on doesn't have good soil and only has native trees and shrubs growing. Anyway, I'll keep trying with the "brutal" method. ?
 

2Seventy5

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Hi 2Seventy5, I am certainly no expert but my best years for pumpkin harvests have been the "volunteers" that pop up in my garden when I top it up with compost, manure etc. This year with more rain than we usually get in Autumn I had some volunteers pop up and I allowed them to grow outside the veggie cage. I read somewhere that it is good to chop off the vine before it grows too far, allowing nutrients to go into fruit production. I did that this year, although I let them ramble through the pool garden as a ground cover to reduce weeds. I have not hand pollinated. We have harvested approximately 40 jap and about a dozen Qld blue. Good luck!

Dan
Thanks for that, Dan. I'll do a bit of pruning and carry on polinating. Looks like we're in the same region. I'm near Springfield.
 

Mandy Onderwater

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I'm no expert on pumpkins at all, but you could also try sharing pictures. Maybe someone will notice a problem you haven't :)
 

DTK

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Thanks for that, Dan. I'll do a bit of pruning and carry on polinating. Looks like we're in the same region. I'm near Springfield.
Hi, pretty close, Bellbowrie
 

JP 1983

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Aye, hand pollination may be the way to go here. It takes a bit of timing and observation of your plants, but you can pull some good yields if you've only got one or two vines to tend.

I found this decent guide with really nice photos of the morphological differences between male and female flowers (both of which will be on the same plant).

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/vegetables/hand-pollinate-pumpkins/

I've been hand-pollinating my balcony-grown and bee-less chillies, which is much easier because all I have to do is touch the stamens till my fingertip is coated in pollen, then grab a chilli flower and carefully rub the tip of the pistil in the pollen. I had about 85% fertilisation rate and my wife was very happy to have fresh chillies almost all of last summer (and I incidentally discovered that chilli pollen is absolutely delicious!)
 
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