One butternut pumpkin only and now the vine looks like it is finishing. The Jap pumpkin flourishing but have only just found the first 2 female flowers but no male flowers blooming at the time to pollinate.
Vegetables • Plants
Dear Lyn,
I am sorry to hear that you haven't been able to harvest of good crop of pumpkins this year.I am wondering when you first planted out your pumpkin seed or seedlings. In your region, it is best to sow the seed mid spring to early summer. They are a warm season vegetable and need to be planted into soil that has had organic matter and pre-planting fertiliser added that will see the plants through to flowering. After flowering commences, scatter a mixed fertiliser around the base of the plants. You will need to repeat this side-dressing at four to five week intervals while plants are bearing. Plants should continue to fruit well into autumn.The first flower is usually male. Male flowers can occur as a result of sudden temperature fluctuations eg. cool days/nights after a hot spell or sudden hot days during milder weather. When temperatures even out, female flowers will then form. It could be that you have had a pollination problem. Hopefully you have lots of bees in your garden to take the pollen from the male flower to the female flower so pollination can take place. Female flowers are receptive late morning. Sometimes the bees will visit the male flowers early in the morning and leave before the female flowers are receptive. If you like, you could hand pollinate by stripping the petals from a male flower and rubbing its centre against each female flower.I would try again this coming spring and I am sure this time you will be successful.
yates
Answered: 2 Apr, 2011
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