Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I've got a pretty successful balcony garden. Today, a friend gave me two pumpkin babies (8cm and 5cm ish). I've never planted pumpkin before - oh! No. When I was in second grade and had a proper garden, I planted pumpkin once, and there were gorgeous flowers but no pumpkins grown. Anyway. Balcony garden. Pumpkinlets. Do you think it's better to plant them in narrow but deep pots or in shallow but long pots? I can give the dimensions if anyone thinks that would make a difference.

Thanks!

Hey mods. I meant to put this in the greenhouse, not the yard. Help?

I'd love to grow pumpkins on my balcony! I hope yours will be a succes. I'd just put them in the very biggest pot you can fit in. I guess it should be at least a little bit deep. But I've never done it myself so some awesome experienced person may have better advice.

No advice I'm afraid but good luck with them.

I'm planning on starting some from seed indoors then growing the plants in a raised bed. I had an awesome Jamaican pumpkin last year so kept the seeds. I'll update if they grow!

i would say wide and deep- they grow quite deep in the garden. add lots of compost. make sure that once it gets to be fruiting time that there are bees (where we are it's bumblebees almost exclusively that pollinate) or you do hand pollination or you'll get no fruit.

My pumpkin plant took over a good third of my vegetable patch. I've seen gourds grow up trellises and arches before, though, so as long as you keep it well-trained and well-fed, it shouldn't be too hard.

Yes you'll need a BIG asparagus trellis for sure. Last year my pumpkin vines were like 25 feet long, no joke yo.

go out there every single day and train the vines, trim away excess leaves, etc. hand pollinate the flowers with a q-tip if you don't have a lot of bees. lots of pumpkins = small fruit, just one or two pumpkins = big fruit. water them like crazy.

are you growing them down the balcony, or up a trellis? if growing up, after the fruit sets, don't let the vine keep growing. keep trimming it back, or you'll shade out all the rest of your plants.

good luck!

I've germinated some of the seeds I mentioned last year and will be potting them soon. I have a small concrete yard and don't think that building a raised bed is going to be feasible, so I'm wondering if using an old bath would work instead. They're deep and wide and have an inbuilt drainage point. Any opinions on this?

i think it would be awesome! anything as big as a bushel basket (or half a barrel) should be enough, i would think.

Seriously. I grew winter squash last year (so, same thing really) from just two plants and they took over my entire porch and yard. See this post, specifically this photo:



Except it got bigger than that.

Agree! We planted pumpkins last year and they stretched the entire length of our yard. It was insane. We may have gotten 2 or 3 actual pumpkins out of the huge mass of vines, leaves, and flowers. We wound up putting in our front yard for fall/halloween decorating. The flowers are really pretty and they get huge. I didn't get a chance to eat any though. This year for sure!

I agree. I think you could plant 2-3 pumpkins in a bathtub. And having them grow over the concrete patio would be fine, but you might want to put a large plastic lid or some other barrier under each pumpkin so it's not in direct contact with the concrete.