I am supposed to thin my pumpkin plants

I put four to five seeds in each hole and they are growing all over the place. I am supposed to thin them out? How do I do this without killing all of them?

I restrict pumpkins to two per hill . The hills are 10 feet apart each way. Thinning is usually done by leaving the two strongest plants and discarding the rest. Needs to be done early before they "run". Might be difficult to do now.

Farmer is right, I leave two per hill also. If they're too thick, just take a knife and cut off the plants you want to thin out close to the ground. This doesn't disturb the roots of the others.

Or you can give them lots of manure tea and just let them grow. ☺

How do you make manure tea?

maybe, you could also restrict their gropwth by pruning off the emds. works for melons. ends might be easier to find then the base of the weakest plant. once all those vines are entertwined its impossible for me to tell which ones to cut.

look in organic gardening forum for all sorts of ways to get manure tea & manure leach. you can even feed them roight into the stem, like an IV!

noobie,

Just take well rotted manure and fill a 5 gallon bucket about 1/4 full, then fill up the rest of the way with water and let set for a couple of days. Some folks dilute this mixture with more water before using but I just use it full strength providing that the manure is well aged.

This message was edited Aug 1, 2005 4:47 PM

thanks BigRed!

Hey;
Big_Red got it right. I use my compost tea tha same way!

If I was going to plant a pumpkin, ya know, like for show I would do as suggested above, keeping it to a single or no more than two plants.
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If one plant, I would keep it to One pumpkin. After I determined it was healthy.

But first, I would dig down and put a full bushel of compost in the hole and plant over it.
I use mushtoom compost but well rotted manure will work.
From horse, rabbit to elephant. Serious too!
Secert is; well composted.....

Bigmac is good. Very prolific. Will turn heads.
Atlantic Giant holds tha worlds record, last I heard.
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Never had any luck with it. Guess I didn't hold my mouth right.
Big macks I've had, from 35-84 pounds.
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When I use to grow them I'd buy some at the Houston farmers market. Sell some and keep one for seeds. Much cheaper!

I quit growing pumpkin because of space.
Even /3plus acreas I have to pick and choose!
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Grandkids are back so I might jus change my mind huh!

[Find your local farmers market]
http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm