![]() This means bigger, tastier, prettier pumpkins for you. However, if the fruit is soft or it’s the sixth or seventh gourd on the plant, including those growing on the secondary runners, cutting it off can help your plant focus its energy on the other five squashes. Instead, measure another five or so feet past the last healthy fruit and make your cut there. If there’s an established fruit growing at that point and you want to keep it, don’t cut yet! To trim the main vine, measure 10-15 feet from the center of the plant where it grows out of the ground. How to TrimĮquipment-wise, all you’ll need for pruning is a pair of gardening gloves, some pruning shears, and a tape measure. Now, let’s talk about how to trim your pumpkin plants. Tertiary vines (those that grow off the runners) should be trimmed as soon as you see them appear.Prune the tips of the secondary runners when they are about 8-10 feet long.Trim the main vine when it is 10-15 feet long when measured from the center of the plant.Here are a few additional guidelines for when to trim: But they’re growing more slowly than they probably would have if I hadn’t recklessly removed the leaves, disrupting their early growth. I’m not sure what the spots were, and the plants seem fine now. This time, without doing any additional research first, I trimmed a few leaves back when the stem was barely a foot long. But my young pumpkin leaves soon developed a few small whitish spots on the edges, and I panicked yet again. That way, water splashing up from infected soil won’t cause the fungus to reinfect new lower leaves. It turned out it was a fungal infection, and happily, the answer was easy: trim away affected leaves and prune the lower portion of the plant to remove the leaves. ![]() ![]() Panicking, I researched what I should do to keep the plant healthy. Ideally, you should try to hold off until you’ve got two to five established fruits growing for larger varieties, or about 10-12 little gourds on smaller cultivars.Įarlier this year when I was growing tomatoes, I noticed a leaf spot starting to develop on the lower leaves of the plant. When to Pruneīefore you do any trimming, wait until they are at least 10-15 feet long. It can be confusing to sort out which is which, but it’s worth taking the time to familiarize yourself with your plant so that when the time comes to trim, you’ll know what you’re looking at. However, it is best to remove any tertiary runners as soon as you notice them, to avoid diverting nutrients from the main and secondary vines. Leaves and blooms – and therefore fruits – can grow from any of these vines. These runners can, in turn, produce additional runners known as tertiaries. You can also encourage growth of secondary roots by burying the stem, as you’ll see below. Growing from the main vine are secondary vine called “runners,” which produce secondary roots if left to grow uninterrupted. It’s the thickest one you’ll see when you inspect your plant. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of when and how to trim your pumpkin plant, here are a few things to know about their growth habits.įirst, there’s the main vine, which is the one directly attached to the roots that grows out of the ground.
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