[Totty]

Hi all,

To try to get my son into gardening i foolishly let him pick a packet of seeds. Marrow, pumpkin, squash i thought would be something he can watch grow. So he picked a packet of Atlantic Giant seed! How much room will one healthy plant take up??? Thanks

[Mark-S]

Lat year i planted 3 plants in an area 4 x 3 m - thinking this would give me room for some overwintering savoys.

It didnt - pumpkins spread like billy-o!

[Half a plot man]

We grew two plants last year and boy did we underestimate the room they take! They grow everywhere and take over your plot, however i have read that as soon as they set fruit remove the growing tip and it stunts the trailing growth. Also make a mound about 6" high, dig in compost or manure and sink a 2ltr pop bottle in with the bottom cut off, you then water  the roots via the bottle, worked a treat we had 9 pumpkins off two plants. Good luck, kids luv them!

[Trillium]

Even squash plants can take over a garden quickly. I regularly grow red kuri at the far end of my garden and by midsummer the vines are across the mid-path and into the other side, as well as crawling up the pigeon coop as well as under and through the grate floors. This year I'm building the squash their own raised bed in the middle of the lawn so they can sprawl to their hearts' content (as I know they will).

Can you convince your son to try radishes?

[SUTTY1]

a healthy A.G. will easily fill a 5m x 4m bed and more but as said before you can have some control stopping the leader and side shouts after fruit has set. .
Hope you have the space and your son enjoys it.

[TheSpartacat]

I found this pumpkin pruning page that might be of some help to you. He recommends not letting the main vine get too long, pruning off tertiary vines but leaving most of the secondary ones as they produce food for the pumpkins. (though some people prune off every other one of these)

You can also allow it to set down additional roots along the vine, to get more nutrients and water into it.
I've seen people training their vines into a kind of spirally type shape, by pegging it to the ground to stop them taking over the plot, but it needs to not get too crowded or they'll get botrytis:
http://www.pumpkinnook.com/howto/vines.htm

[Totty]

Thanks all!

[Jono]

Half a plot man's tip about watering is great - I did that last year and my crops improved greatly.

I try not to plant my courgettes to close to my pumpkins and squash as I've found they do this weird cross pollination thing, and a few of the fruits are a strange marrow-cum-pumpkin.

[DD.]

Cross pollination will not affect the fruit in the year they cross.

It's the seeds they produce that will give a hybrid next year.

[peapod]

Famous pic now requested DD

It always makes me 

[DD.]

If you insist.

Offspring the following year from what looked like a perfectly normal marrow:

[peapod]

Its the giantacornpumpmarrow species 

[TheSpartacat]

Ah, but the all important question DD... how did they taste?

Quite nice looking.... I'm thinkin i'd quite like a row of those :-)

[DD.]

It actually was a plant I gave away to a neighbouring plot holder, supposed to be a trailing marrow.

He said it tatsted fine, not sure how he cooked it though.

[TheSpartacat]

I cant help wonder if one half tasted of pumpkin and the other half marrow.... Could be a great space saver for people who want to grow both? 
Almost like something out of a Willie Wonka factory...