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Mill Bay, British Columbia

Our first year growing a couple of prizewinner plants for some extra porch pumpkins for friends and neighbours and I’m wondering what experienced growers do, when it comes to number of fruit per plant.

I’ve reached out to my prizewinner mentor, but I’m curious also to hear the general concensus from other experienced growers what is the optimum number of fruit per plant.

I as planning on 1 fruit on the main and 1 pumpkin on each side on a secondary for 3 fruit in total per plant. Each plant when full size can be up to 400 square feet each.

Thanks/Glenn

7/2/2021 10:32:21 AM

Nova Scotia

Glenn we have been growing Prizewinners probably going on 30 years anyway. We just plant the seeds directly outdoors leaving 2 plants per hill spaced about 10 feet between rows and 8 feet within a row. We just let them go on their own and generally get many in the 80-150 lb. range. We usually get 2 to 3 per plant so you should be good with 3 "porch" pumpkins. Danny

7/2/2021 12:39:22 PM

Westmoreland, KS

Howard is exactly correct if you want to get some nice big pumpkins just keep a healthy plant and let the plant do what it wants. It will know which pumpkins it needs to grow and which ones it needs to abort. However, if you are going for the biggest pumpkin you can get then you need to only grow 1 pumpkin per plant preferably on the main vine.

7/2/2021 12:55:34 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Thanks Danny, great to hear from you. I’ve got the 2 plants in 800 sq ft and have been grooming like a regular AG and it’s pollination time now with plenty of females flowers.

Jake, Id like to get a few on these plants and will set a few more backups, they are for giveaways and most people are “Wow” when they see a 100 lb pumpkin and “Whoa” on anything like the giants we grow.

7/2/2021 2:58:19 PM

Nova Scotia

Right on Glenn. We run out of Prizewinners every season as they are very attractive, easy to handle for those who want a "big" pumpkin. If my memory serves me correct when Burpee Seeds introduced Prizewinner they offered a prize for the biggest one? Something tells me Tony Ciliberto from PA won with a 300 lb. plus one? 365 lbs. maybe? IDK maybe someone can confirm.

7/2/2021 3:27:13 PM

Jericho Vermont

Just might want to release tap roots by the pumpkins you want to keep. We had a 200 plus pound beauty many years ago that stopped growing because it ripped most of the stem off as it grew in height. Overall, that’s the only extra care I would give them.

7/2/2021 8:59:47 PM