Pumpkin fruits are famous for their versatility and are a welcome planting in almost every garden area. For the successful cultivation of this crop, you need to choose a very sunny and elevated place. She loves moisture and heat, but does not tolerate stagnation of water. For example, an old manure bed is the best place to plant pumpkins. However, how you will care for your plants is very important. Very soon, tender seedlings will turn into powerful plants with huge leaves and large stems. Today we will consider how to pinch a pumpkin so that it does not leave the zone of its growth, and also delight you with an excellent harvest, size and quality of its fruits.
Plant features
When choosing a place, you should consider that this is a plant with a huge branchy root system. She, like a pump, will pump out nutrients from the soil, directing them to the formation of the vegetative part and fruits. Large leaves and strong creeping whips will soon be able to drown out the neighboring plantings. Therefore, if possible, it is better to plant a pumpkin near the fence. She will gladly braid it whole, and you just have to tie up the heavy fruits so that they do not break off the lashes ahead of time. However, if there is no solar fence on the site, then the question "how to pinch a pumpkin" becomes very relevant. This must be done in advance while the plant is young.
What is pinching for?
Another important issue. Indeed, it is not enough to know how to pinch a pumpkin; it is also necessary to understand why this is done. We will try to answer these questions. An experienced gardener can regulate early maturity and yield, as well as the quality of the fruit, based on knowledge of the patterns of growth and development of pumpkin plants. That is, you have to become a kind of surgeon who, with the help of pinching and pruning, pinching, rationing flowers and fruits and removing excess leaves, achieves excellent results.
Do I need to pinch a pumpkin
To answer this question, let's look at how the growth and development of pumpkin plants occurs. From the seeded to the new seed, the plant at the growth points goes through 12 stages of morphogenesis. The vegetative bud turns into a future flower from the third stage. In annuals, such as pumpkins, the formation of rudimentary flowers occurs already on the 7th day after germination. That is, a young plant that has just entered the phase of 3-4 leaves already has all the flowers for the future harvest. The gardener's task is to know exactly how to pinch a pumpkin to get more female flowers.
Core technology
They are not so complicated. Having decided on whether to pinch a pumpkin, we proceed directly to practice. In pumpkin plants, pinching consists in removing the apical bud or part of the shoot. Why is this done? To awaken lateral shoots with lots of female flowers. Pinching is carried out during all periods of growth, which means that your plant should always be under control. However, this is not the only technology. Below we will talk about how to pinch a pumpkin in the open ground, but for now let's see how stepsoning is performed.
This is the procedure for removing young axillary extra shoots. It is advisable to do this with a shoot length of 5-7 cm. Below we will consider the basic and simplest schemes for forming a bush, which are used by gardeners when growing pumpkin plants. This planting is overgrown when the plant spreads along the ground, or vertically, on a trellis.
Bush planting
Pumpkin is planted in open ground in May. In this case, you should not choose a seedling method. This plant will gain strength very quickly and will have time to yield when planted with seeds. But when planting seedlings, it is easy to damage the delicate roots, which the pumpkin really does not like. The bed is prepared in the fall, digging and applying organic fertilizers. All compost, grass, tops are dumped on the garden for the winter. In spring, when the soil warms up, the compost is pushed and seeds are stuck in the soil. Depth - 3 sizes of seeds. The distance between plants - 60 cm, planting - 2 per hole.
Shoots will appear very soon, and you will have a question: "How to pinch a pumpkin in the open ground?" Let's look at the need for this procedure in more detail. It should immediately be noted: even if you do not make any manipulations with your pumpkin after planting, the harvest will still be, but the bushes will take up a lot of space, and the fruits are likely to be small.
Pumpkin bush formation
We turn to the main question: "How to pinch a pumpkin in the open ground?" All varieties of these plants are divided into long-walled and bush. The peculiarity of the first is the intensive and very rapid growth of the lashes. There is no need to stop this process. The gardener's task is to direct all lashes in one direction, thinning them (pinching) and removing excess leaves. However, anyway, over and over again, you will think about whether you need to pinch a pumpkin, which belongs to the long-scalloped ones? No, that doesn't make sense. The best results are achieved by gardeners who orient each shoot in a direction convenient for them, dusting the internode with humus. At the same time, only one ovary is left on each lash. This is how you can achieve excellent fruit sizes.
However, this is not the only type of pumpkin. Do I need to pinch a pumpkin, if it belongs to the bush? These varieties have very short internodes and a large number of side shoots. The first fruit is formed on the main stem, if necessary, you can pinch it. It is necessary to thin out the bush and remove long and barren side shoots. It is very important to standardize the yield on bush varieties. It is this measure that allows to accelerate the ripening of fruits and improve their quality, as well as provide high keeping quality.
Watering and feeding
We continue the conversation on how to pinch a pumpkin properly. We will deviate a little more from this topic, because, in addition to forming a bush, an important issue is providing it with the necessary conditions for growth and development. The root of the pumpkin goes 2 meters deep into the soil, so the close occurrence of groundwater is fatal for it. But watering the plant is very fond of, powerful leaves need it regularly. In extreme heat, the leaves may hang during the day, as if they were scorched, but this does not mean that you immediately need to grab onto the hose or watering can. It is enough to shed the holes in the evening well - and the plants will be restored during the night.
The better the bed is fertilized, the more the pumpkin branches. Therefore, questions about how to feed and how to pinch a pumpkin are very interconnected. An excess of fertilizers will lead to the appearance of a large number of green lashes that will not bloom and bear fruit. Therefore, if you have fertilized the garden since the autumn, then organic matter is not introduced in the summer season. A well-manicured bed already provides nutrition to the plant, so stepsons must be constantly monitored. Otherwise, you risk getting a huge plant that obscures everything around, but at the same time gives a dozen small fruits.
To save space and ease of pinching pumpkins put trellis. The plant does not need to be tied up, it will perfectly climb on it by itself. At the very beginning of the development of the bush, direct young shoots to the trellis, and then simply periodically thin out the stepsons, remove excess flowers and fruits
Crop rationing
It would seem that we are planting plants in order to get more fruits. Then do I need to pinch pumpkin and zucchini? If you intend to store the crop in winter, it is very important that the pumpkin ripen on loops. The plant will not be able to grow all the fruits that it forms normally. And unripe, they will not endure the bed and begin to rot in the fall. That is why we answer positively to the question "should I pinch pumpkin and zucchini"? And in August they start rationing the crop. To do this, remove all excess ovaries, stepsons, that is, as a result, 2-3 fruits should remain on each bush. If the plant already has small pumpkins suitable for food, then they can be used now for baking and cooking porridge.
Summarize
We examined all the technological details of the question "how to pinch a pumpkin." It should be emphasized once again that in Russia, the formation of shoots in open ground is not so necessary. Nevertheless, an extra thickening is also not what. That is, if there is no time, then you should not bother with pinching, but ideally you also need to take care of the pumpkin. Each variety has its own ripening period, so you need to ensure that the fruits do not get frozen. Otherwise, the pumpkin will only have to be cleaned and stored further in the refrigerator.
In general, pumpkin is a very unpretentious vegetable. She willingly gives a crop in almost any climatic conditions, the main thing is that there is a period of heat, so that the fruits have time to set. Protected water and organic fertilizers will be a good help. Pumpkin will not require anything else from you. With proper preparation of the beds, even fertilizers will be superfluous. At the same time, pumpkin fruits can be widely used in your kitchen.