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Salt Lake City, Utah

I am a first timer, and Don's book is in the mail still so forgive me if these questions are basic knowledge. I am seeing that the female blossoms on my plant grow out of the junctions (nodes?) along the vine, and each one of these has a leaf, a tendil, a secondary, and a female growing out of the same little area from the vine. Am I supposed to trim everything off except the female blossom? ...and if so, when? If so, do I trim them right up close to the vine, our out a ways? Also, when I trim something, do I need to do anything to the cut? It looks like pruning anything leaves a tunnel right into my plant, which makes me nervous. Also, I have a limited area in a backyard, and need to control some secondaries that are growing out onto the lawn. If I need to cut the end of a secondary to stop it, should I bury the tip in the dirt after the cut? Thanks for any advise you can give me!

7/7/2003 12:08:16 PM

Western WA

This is only my second year so im not sure how accurate this is. What I do is first i give the pumpkin i pollinated a few days and maybe even a week to make sure i dont prune leaves unless the pumpkin is set. If im sure it is i prune the secondary and tendril first, and then i trim the leave on the same node after it cannot fully shade the pumpkin from the sun. then i put up a shade tarp. Dont forget about the taproots those have to be trimmed about the same time as the secondary and tendril to provide some slack on the vine. Anyways, I would trim everything until about a half an inch is left of the leaves or whatever your trimming. You could put some fungicide on the trimmed area but usually thats not really necessary. And finally just pinch off the new growth on the secondaries and yes bury them. If you can you could try and grow them back and into your growing area so you would be able to keep more foliage on your plant. just my opinion. Antonio Bandino

7/7/2003 4:11:25 PM