My pumpkin vines are taking over the garden!?

Question

I planted 4 pumpkin vines at the back of my small garden. They are now 4-6 feet long, have about 20 flowers each (from the size of a walnut to the size of my hand) and are growng over/pulling down the other plants in the garden. I should have planted them farther apart, but live and learn.

Can I transplant them to another part of the garden? How would I transplant the vines?

Answer 1

Susan, Carefully prune off any plant vines that do not have big flowers. They won't bear pumpkins anyway. In the long stringers that by now are probably crawling into your lawn trim them back also. By doing this you're forcing the remaining vined to produce larger pumpkins. As they form and grow place wheat straw beneath them. This helps to keep them clean and uniform as they grow. Wet earth will discolor and flatten pumpkins as they grow. Pumpkins love fertilizer and water beneath the vines.

Answer 2

They definitely can not be transplanted. They are now starting in the producing stage. Pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupes, etc. need quite a bit of space of their own, for their vines produce many fruits from just one vine. Although I have grown all of these things and quite successfully, I do not have any experienced answers on if you should cut the vines back or not. But experience with other vining plants and flowers tells me that you should be able to do the same with those fruit vines as well. The only thing that common sense tells me is if you do trim the vine, make sure you leave at least one or two of the flowers on the vines so you can make sure you will at least get a couple of the pumpkins. What will and should probable happen is that you should get quite a large pumpkin off each vine for they are the only one or two left on the vine that is being supplied with nutrients and water.

Better to have one or two big pumpkins than 20 little ones anyway, unless you are trying to grow them to sell.

Answer 3

They're probably too big to transplant now without killing them, but you can cut the tendrils that are attaching them to other plants and either gently move the vines in another direction or continue to let them run between the plants. I always plant vine crops at the very back of the garden and encourage the vines to run across the grass where they can't do much harm other than keeping me from mowing that area.

Answer 4

I'd trim off most of the leaves, and cut it back a little. Stop feeding nitrogen. Feed it only bone meal