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Ontario

This will be my 2nd year growing and i cant seem to make my mind up on this...if you had a choice would you grow 4 plants in 935 sq ft or 6 plants in 625 sq ft. The extra work not being an issue.

1/27/2016 7:41:31 PM

Ontario

Sorry i meant sq ft per plant

1/27/2016 8:02:42 PM

Deer Park WA

I would grow two well pruned plants in 1200 SqFt if possible to maximize the fruits potential. Anything less than that will impact fruit size (IMHO). We used to grow 1000 to 1500 sq ft plants but found larger pumpkins came from 600 to 800 sq ft plants.

1/27/2016 8:40:19 PM

Sissonville wva

gadberry question;if your patch was 20x60 how would you position your plants.the 60ft side goes south to north.thanks in advance

1/27/2016 11:03:32 PM

Ireland

great question big blue.

Like gadberry said Orv, I'd go with reducing the numbers of plants but increasing the area given to each one. So say maybe go with 1000-1200 sqft per plant

1/28/2016 8:44:48 AM

Germany

It will also depend on how fast you will manage to fill the patch with the plants. In an area with rather cold weather and slower plant growth the 625 sqft thing (and having 6 plants) should be better than having 650 sqft plants around mid August and trying to fill the remaining space with vines during the next month (because it very often happens that plant growth slows down quite alot as soon as the fruit is growing fast).

1/28/2016 8:57:31 AM

Germany

Therefore, because you want to learn something useful for the next years, you might consider growing 5 plants. On one half of the patch you grow two plants of 935 sqft size, on the other half you grow 3 plants of 625 sqft size (same year, same soil, same weather). Then you can compare results vs. plant size.

1/28/2016 8:59:54 AM

Central NY

ORV - you grow nice plants...let them grow to potential ..I vote 4 plants

1/28/2016 9:40:20 AM

Ontario

4 plants would be ideal for me that is what i tried for last year but with rookie mistakes i got 1 out of original 4 to grow and with no back ups ( another rookie mistake) i was starting seeds every few days, finally got 3 to grow and 1 to weigh off, expecting failures again this year i was thinking of starting 6. I like the 5 plant idea Pumpking that could work also, always nice to get other opinions...thanks guys

1/28/2016 5:46:52 PM

Deer Park WA

Hi Orv,
If I had to grow in a 20 X 60 area I would plant them in the center of the 60 foot patch and grow them away from each other (easir to water and can cover both with a single cloche. I let a plant go wild back in the early 90s only pruning (most of the) terciary vines and it was close to 2000 sq ft and the single pumpkin (on the main) only hit 500#. In contrast I grew the same seed and pruned the plant to 600 Sq Ft and grew a pumpkin to 1100 pounds, it split due to my own stupidity but it shows the that the plants nature to sprawl becomes predatory to the growth of the fruit. In my humble opinion to get a really big one you need at least 500 SqFt of very well managed plant so two plants would be as many as I would put in that 20 x 60 box.

1/28/2016 9:20:40 PM

Sissonville wva

thank you guys for your advice

1/28/2016 11:13:09 PM

Muddy Waters

I jumped from 600 per plant to 800 per plant & saw better results.Plant in the center of your patch .Dont plant on the edge of your lawn or a driveway or near a foundation.Keep the root zone from the stump out 360 degrees of good loose ground.No brick walls or bad ground to slow down the roots.

2/9/2016 7:52:18 AM