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Pumpkin vine
Aug. 5th, 2012 03:49 pmThis spring, I thought I'd try growing pumpkins. That's one thing we've never grown on the farm. We had squash and melons coming out of our ears until the squash bugs got bad and my dad gave it up and decided to let the soil rest for awhile. (Awhile turned into fifteen years.) But I had just cleaned out a raised bed on the west side of the house. It has one survivor of a rose bush that has been there for at least a decade without a single bit of attention, even water. In spring there are Star of Bethlehem. Later it's just ants and weeds. I figured with some decent mulch and TLC, we could grow vines there. It's the top of the driveway and it gets a lot of strong sun. My dad put in ornamental sweet potato vines, and I planted some pumpkin seedlings I'd started in cups of worm castings that I dug out of the ditch at the edge of the woods.
The pumpkin vines just took off. With it being such a hot and dry summer, we've watered them, but other than that they didn't need anything. Just three plants turned into a fifteen foot by five foot patch of driveway covered with giant, prickly leaves rising off of fat pithy vines. And the blossoms! Big, yellow-orange, pointed petals like a melon or squash blossom should be. Lots of them.
But as the months went on, I noticed there were no fruits forming when the blossoms withered. With zucchini, for instance, every blossom turns into a squash and you can't stop them if you try. When the squash is ready, the blossom petals dry up and fall off. I figured pumpkins would be like this as well. But I did some research and learned that pumpkins are not nearly so successful. They have male blossoms and female blossoms, and of course the twain must meet for a fruit to be produced. The male blossoms come right off of a straight stem and the female blossoms have a little swelling at the top of the stem below the blossom.
I went out and inspected my blossoms. There were many male blossoms, probably twenty at the time, and among them I only found two female buds. Apparently farmers often have to hand-pollinate these. The problem with my pumpkin vine, and it seems this is not uncommon, was that the male blossoms were all fully open, their pollen easily accessible, but the females were not mature enough to open yet. If the male and female blossoms don't open at the same time, the ants and wasps (or the farmer) can't successfully pollinate. Also, the blossoms are only open in the morning. I had no idea pumpkins were so fussy!
So far, I've only seen one actual baby pumpkin, and a week after we noticed it, we couldn't find it anymore. So I'm not sure we're going to get any produce from these vines, but they've sure been impressive to look at in any case. This summer, it's a wonder when anything is still alive.
The pumpkin vines just took off. With it being such a hot and dry summer, we've watered them, but other than that they didn't need anything. Just three plants turned into a fifteen foot by five foot patch of driveway covered with giant, prickly leaves rising off of fat pithy vines. And the blossoms! Big, yellow-orange, pointed petals like a melon or squash blossom should be. Lots of them.
But as the months went on, I noticed there were no fruits forming when the blossoms withered. With zucchini, for instance, every blossom turns into a squash and you can't stop them if you try. When the squash is ready, the blossom petals dry up and fall off. I figured pumpkins would be like this as well. But I did some research and learned that pumpkins are not nearly so successful. They have male blossoms and female blossoms, and of course the twain must meet for a fruit to be produced. The male blossoms come right off of a straight stem and the female blossoms have a little swelling at the top of the stem below the blossom.
I went out and inspected my blossoms. There were many male blossoms, probably twenty at the time, and among them I only found two female buds. Apparently farmers often have to hand-pollinate these. The problem with my pumpkin vine, and it seems this is not uncommon, was that the male blossoms were all fully open, their pollen easily accessible, but the females were not mature enough to open yet. If the male and female blossoms don't open at the same time, the ants and wasps (or the farmer) can't successfully pollinate. Also, the blossoms are only open in the morning. I had no idea pumpkins were so fussy!
So far, I've only seen one actual baby pumpkin, and a week after we noticed it, we couldn't find it anymore. So I'm not sure we're going to get any produce from these vines, but they've sure been impressive to look at in any case. This summer, it's a wonder when anything is still alive.
