[senrab_nhoj]

My allotment organisation has an annual giant pum'king' competition....

.. now apart from telling me how I should have prepared the soil for months on end etc etc which is no longer useful, is there anything I can do to have best chance of growing the biggest pumpkin I can..

Facts to date:

Have a well established, very healthy pumkin plant (hundredweight) in situ at the end of my 'squash' bed.  so plenty of space to grow.  It has one longish runner which I am training across the bed as its planted off centre (I've staggered my squash plants) Its had some flowers over the past few days and fingers crossed some fruits should start appearing:

Questions:

Should I limit the shoots
a) according to number of fruit
b) according to space available

Should I limit the fruits
a) to a set number
b) to a set number then reduce to one when clear which has most potential

Feed, its had growmore pre planting and post planting

Once fruits have set should I pile on feed (tomato?)

Any other tips... ??

[agapanthus]

I've heard that beer (bitter) is a good feed. Apparently pumpkins love the sugar content

[compostqueen]

They like warmth too so be ready with the fleece if we get some chillier weather

[mashauk]

Someone on telly fed his 2 pints of Guinness slops a day!

[Aidy]

Feed every other day tomato food once fruits have started, limit it to two and then decide on the biggest and only grow that on. water every day unless issingdown. I read and I am trying this year to bury the stem after the fruit in the ground, this encourages root growth so you have two lots of root supplying nutrients between the pumpkin. You can keep trimming the plant so more energy goes into the fruit. There are lots of mystical feeds but I find tom food good.

[senrab_nhoj]

Feed every other day tomato food once fruits have started, limit it to two and then decide on the biggest and only grow that on. water every day unless issingdown. I read and I am trying this year to bury the stem after the fruit in the ground, this encourages root growth so you have two lots of root supplying nutrients between the pumpkin. You can keep trimming the plant so more energy goes into the fruit. There are lots of mystical feeds but I find tom food good.

Excellent, thanks for that.... I shall try the stem burying trick as well

[vegmandan]

I knew an old guy who would actually thread wool through the stalk of the pumpkin fruit then leave the wool dangling in a jar of sugar solution,and the fruit drew this solution up like a wick and they were enormous.

I tried it myself and it just went mouldy and fell off,but it worked for him.    

Might be worth a bit of research to refine the technique  

[Aidy]

The other way was to insert an Intravenous drip into the stalk to supply water. Again an old method I have never tried.