How to care for pumpkins: 6 tips for a rich harvest

Cutting pumpkin shoots

The sprawling runners can take up a lot of space and should be shortened if necessary. However, remember that the pumpkin plant also needs enough leaves and roots to develop fruit. So if you have to shorten shoots, you should always be careful not to cut off too much. If space is tight, you can shorten larger pumpkin plants with three to five leaves per shoot to two leaves in June. If there is a lack of space, you can also directly attach a scaffold instead and direct the pumpkin upwards.

How to fertilize pumpkins

Pumpkin plants grow very quickly and therefore need a lot of nutrients. If the garden soil is fertile, it is sufficient to fertilize the soil once a year with a layer of compost about 2.5 cm/ 9,8 in thick. For poor, humus-poor soil, you may need more compost (up to 15 cm/ 5,9 in thick layer). Alternatively, as mentioned above, you can grow your pumpkin directly at the bottom of a compost. Then no fertilization is necessary. If you notice a lack of nutrients during the season, you can fertilize with diluted nettle slurry.

Pinch off side shoots from pumpkin plant: how to do it

By pinching out shoots, the plant's energy can be directed towards individual fruits and thus their growth and size. In doing so, you remove new shoots that grow from the leaf axils in order to branch out and expand further. Of course, you can also let the pumpkin plant grow. This will result in many small pumpkins, as their energy is distributed evenly across all the shoots. If you want fewer but larger pump kins, you can remove these new shoots. It is not necessary to pinch out pumpkins nearly as often as tomatoes. It is sufficient if you take one or two days in July to pinch out your pumpkin plants.

Watering the pumpkin correctly

Pumpkins need plenty of water evenly throughout the season in order to thrive and produce lots of fruit. The fruit of the pumpkin plant consists of up to 90 % water. It is therefore easy to see why the plant cannot produce fruit if there is a lack of water. Like most plants, it reacts sensitively to waterlogging and its roots begin to rot. As the leaves of the pumpkin plant are hairy, you should pay attention to them when watering and avoid hitting them with the water. Otherwise you risk burns from the sunlight.

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Mulching pumpkin

With their shallow but extensive root system, pumpkins are shallow-rooted plants. In combination with the high water requirement, a layer of mulch with some straw is particularly important at the beginning to protect the plant from drying out. Later, when the pumpkin plant is larger and covers the ground, its leaves themselves provide enough shade to protect the soil from drying out.

Prevent rotting of pumpkins during ripening

When the pumpkins have reached their final size , the fruits are placed on a dry surface to ripen further. This is to prevent rotting and prolongs the storage life of the pumpkins. Place the fruit with the stem facing upwards on a base made of wood, straw or stone. This allows them to ripen well and give them an even shape.

Good luck caring for your pumpkins!

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Cover picture by rauschenberger on Pixabay.