I planted some vines early last month, and theyre a good size, at least 15ft long with lots of flowers, but no fruit. I just read an article on pumpkin vines that says the female flowers need to be hand pollinated if theres no bees around to do it themselves...so if I pollinated tomorrow, would I have pumpkins (even tiny ones) in time for Halloween?
I wouldn't think so, I don't think you have enough hot weather left to meet their needs. Depending on the type of pumpkin you planted it takes anywhere from 90-160 days for pumpkins to mature, that's from germination to ripe pumpkin. But you can give it a try anyway, never really know what will happen sometimes.
May not have time in your area but try anyway. I usually plant seed in May/June for Sept/Oct. harvest.
Bip//I am not familiar with the climatic conditions in your area, but here the pumpkins had size and were already orange a few weeks ago, so I would be very surprized if you would be successful this season. Having said that, the vines are already in place, so whatcha got to loose?
I dont remember the variety, but the tag said 60-90 days. I bought the seedlings as soon as they were available at Home Depot.
Planting seedlings does cut down on the time frame and the time of growing before you bought them subtracted from the 60-90 days will probably work in you favor. The mini-pumpkins are the ones with the 60-90 day to maturity so that helps too. You just might have pumpkins by the end of the month. Let us know and share some photos of the little guys too please.
How did your pumpkins turn out? It takes awhile for pumpkins to turn orange. If you try again next spring,try pollinating a few yourself. Take a female flower and rub it on the male(the one with the bump after the flower. I have always had better pumpkins when I do this.Do it early in the morning when the flowers are open.One more thing,keep those pesky cuccumber beetles out of your flowers.They will spread disease. Good luck.
Pick them before cold weather gets them, paint them white with little eyes and a mouth and make mini-snowmen out of them
