Pumpkins! <wail>

[archfiend]

Ok, I realise that I am probably being a tiny bit dense but I need help!

I have tried failed to grow pumpkins for the last few years. I can get them to germinate, I have had lots of nice plants and I get tiny little pumpkin bud things on the end of flowers. And that's it! They never get any bigger.

Is there a magic thing that I am not doing to make the bastards grow?? I would just like one shiny pumpkin, that's all. .

Please can someone help me before I suffer another year of disappointment? I can manage courgettes no problem but for some reason the pumpkin has defeated me. Sob.

Bumping for the sake of my poor unhatched pumpkins...

www.pumpkinnook.com/howto/pollen.htm

are they not polinating properly? sounds like you have female flowers that aren't olinated by males?

www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22314

another place saying the same thing

keep them well watered and pollinate by hand. and by careful what you wish for, we once ended up with a monster plant that took over much of our garden and made attempts to climb over the fence in two directions to our neighbours gardens. We were convinced it was after our cats next.

Aha! Thank you - I shall try hand pollinating and see if that helps.
OYBBK - I would LOVE a giant neighbour-eating pumpkin...

It was truely awesome!!! I darent try again, even though it was rather exciting!

I shall try and recreate it in my garden this year!

I managed a pumpkin last year among a catalogue of failures. I admired it often and was leaving it until closer to Halloween. One morning I went out and there was a pile of pushed up earth with a hole in the top, next to the pumpkin stalk and a small section of pumpkin. I left it to show the children and when I got back, the hole had disappeared along with the remainder of the pumpkin! When I dug up the rest of the vegetable patch in the Autumn, I found that my bean roots had been borrowed to line several tunnels and other roots had been borrowed to make a rather comfortable looking round underground nest.

when it gets ready to put out put it on your compost bin, like plant it out in there, works wonders, we had to use a garden chair to support our last big one cause of where it ended up taking itself off to grow

steff thanks - I will give that a try.
misty if anything eats my hard won and longed for pumpkin I will be so upset!

I will manage to grow one this year, I will!

I've had success planting in the compost heap too. But last year the slugs won.

Has anyone tried that trick where you put the smallish fruit in a square container as it is growing and you get a square pumpkin? I might give it a go...

OK, I have 6 pumpkin plants. 1 is going in the raised bed, 4 will go in manure filled planting bags and I may try to put one in a box (if I can get it to grow).

Fingers crossed if they all grow I'm buggered aren't I?!