How to Prune Pumpkins (for BIGGER Fruit)

yes you should prune your pumpkins and it's really nothing to be nervous about hi i'm gardener scott a master gardener who discusses everything gardening so that you can become a better gardener and today i'll show you how i prune my pumpkins [Music] i know that there are many gardeners who have similar pumpkin patches and are a little concerned about the pruning so they just let them sprawl and grow and then before you know it they overtake beds they definitely overtake pathways and becomes a jumbled mess that's a primary reason why to prune your pumpkin plants so that they don't take over the whole garden a single vine will keep growing and keep growing and keep growing as long as the weather is warm this is mid-summer for me and in my garden this is when i prune pumpkins now you can prune much earlier in the season to direct the growth of your plant but i've got really harsh conditions especially the hail from thunderstorms and if i prune too early in the year and a hail storm comes it may devastate the plant that i recently pruned so i wait until conditions stabilize a little bit and then get to the pruning for the second main reason to try to direct as much energy into the fruit because i can see the end of the season coming i'm only about six weeks away from my first frost and i want my pumpkins to fully develop so by pruning in mid-summer i can stop some of that rampant growth of the vines and get it focused on the fruits i have 10 pumpkin plants growing on both sides of my huge culture mound garden bed i've got five on this side and five on that side and they're slightly staggered but the plants are just under a meter apart from that end of the bed to this end of the bed where i have a zucchini plant for the most part the plants that are on that side i've trained their vines to grow parallel to the bed and the vines on this side are also growing parallel to the bed it's helpful to understand how the vines grow in a pumpkin patch you have three different types of vines you have the main vines you have the secondary vines and then you have tertiary vines and they grow off of each other so i've been training the main vines to run parallel to this bed and those vines can easily become 10 feet long and more so some of the vines from the plants on that side are running in this direction and some of the vines from the plants on this side are running in that direction and they're actually growing across each other the secondary vines will grow from those primary vines and and that's great they add extra leaves extra photosynthesis also extra shading on the ground to act kind of like a living mulch and then you have the tertiary vines that grow off of those secondary vines right off the bat when you learn about how the vines grow you'll realize kind of like a tomato plant with lots lots of suckers that are sprouting out you want to get rid of those tertiary vines whenever you see them they'll rob energy from the plant to grow and they're really not necessary with a good supply of the primary and secondary vines growing i've followed one of the vines from that end of the bed to this spot right here and i've measured it at 12 feet this vine is starting to grow into the wood pile and it's interfering with some of the growth of these plants from this side so this is the 11 foot mark i'm going to go ahead and take my pruning shears and just cut the tip off of this pumpkin vine now let's trace back the vine to see how many pumpkins are growing on this specific one so now let's just follow the vine back along the measuring tape you'll see that there's a lot of growth extending towards the end and on this particular vine there's one pumpkin growing right here and if i follow this back all the way to the main plant that's the only pumpkin growing along the vine i consider that a very effective pruning cut by cutting the growing tip i've now stopped all additional growth of the vine in that forward direction so it won't get any longer and grow into the wood pile and also by cutting the growing tip much more energy is going to be directed at that single pumpkin on the vine now the vine has been stressed and you can expect that the plant will probably try to send out some secondary vines and maybe even some tertiary vines off of those but most of that energy is going to be directed into the fruit development so i can expect that pumpkin to get a little larger because now the plant energy isn't being directed and growing a longer vine and i can also expect that the pumpkin will probably mature a little bit sooner hopefully for me before that frost comes here's an example of a secondary vine that's growing off of this main one that we just cut at about the three and a half foot mark we have a growth of this secondary vine that's extending away from the bed and because i know there's only one pumpkin on this vine and i have limited time left in the season there's no reason for me to want any more pumpkins to develop along this vine so another pruning option is to go ahead and cut out any flowers that are growing along this vine so that they don't suck up any extra plant energy that could be going to this pumpkin so i'll just come along and wherever i see a flower i'll cut it off i couldn't do this with my fingers and also if i see any fruit that is trying to form or maybe a little bit misformed i'll cut it off as well because i have limited time in my season i'm going to continue this flower pruning throughout the entire patch and i'll also continue cutting off some of the smaller fruits i'm really thinking about the pumpkins that have already formed and there is some judgment involved at this point because if i come across some small pumpkins i have to decide are they big enough to stay or so small that they should be pruned off and i've discovered these pumpkins right here so here's a small one that is just starting to develop there's no reason to keep this one at all but there's another one that is about the size of a softball there's probably not enough time in the season for this one to continue growing so i'm going to go ahead and cut this one off it's good size i really hate to do this but it needs to be done just to ensure that the others will continue to grow a little farther up the hill found some bigger pumpkins here's one bigger than a softball it gets to stay here's another one that's also big enough to stay even though it's pretty small and at the top of the hill there's one that's definitely big enough to save what i'll do at this point is go ahead and prune off all the flowers just because they have no purpose at this point because there's lots of good pumpkins developing along these vines so those are the basics of pruning to benefit the fruit and it takes a little bit of thinking of consideration for the size but the other reason for pruning which is to stop the sprawl is much easier there's very little thinking involved you can see that the tip of this vine has been damaged probably from me walking back and forth on this path well a damaged plant like this could entice some harmful insects so i'll definitely cut this tip off give it a nice clean cut but to avoid any potential problem of me stepping on these anymore i'll go ahead and back it off and as i look at the rest of the vine i went ahead and cut off the flowers that i saw but just behind this new tip this is not going to grow anymore but there's a secondary vine that's starting to branch off i could cut it at this point but it's not in the way and i think i'll allow it to grow to fill in this space and give me some more leaves to cut down on soil evaporation and benefit the fruit of the plant here's a vine that is also a pretty easy decision for me it's growing in the wrong direction right into the main pathway of my garden i followed it back there's no fruit on it i could turn it and go in the other direction but because there's no fruit and because it's already in the way i'm going to go ahead and cut it back to just below the bottom of the hill and here are a couple more easy decisions this tip has been damaged for me walking along this path there's also a little baby pumpkin that's starting to develop right here and some flowers that are trying to grow none of that is necessary so i'll cut this one back this one right here has the same issue the growing tip is damaged and i'll just cut it back as well all of this is going to go into the compost pile i don't wear gloves when i prune the pumpkins but the stems and the vines are prickly and can cause skin irritation if you're doing this for the first time i do suggest you wear gloves i will definitely wear gloves when i scoop everything up to throw in the compost because even my tough hands don't like all those prickles you don't need to see me trim all the growing tips and all the flowers but that's what i'm going to continue with my pumpkin patch and when i get it all done i'll have a nice tidy group of plants with the energy being focused on the pumpkins themselves it's easy it's definitely something you should consider and probably should do another thing you should do is watch one of these videos next to continue your gardening journey i'm gardener scott enjoy gardening [Music]

Channel: Gardener Scott

Views: 181,487

Keywords: gardener scott, gardner scott, pruning pumpkins, trimming pumpkin vines, prune pumpkin, should i prune pumpkin plants, prune pumpkin flowers, can i prune pumpkin vines, how to prune pumpkins, cut pumpkin vines, prune pumpkin vines

Id: MuNYlE4DyXc

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020