It is important to keep your vines under control. When your plant initially grows, you will see the main vine. Coming off of the main vine are the secondary vines. Make sure you reposition the secondary vines to be at a 90 degree angle with the main vine. Coming off of the secondary vines are tertiary vines. You will need to cut any tertiary vines as soon as you see them. The tertiary vines just absorb the nutrients that the rest of your pumpkin plant needs. Make sure you prune or cut off any tertiary vines.
It’s amazing how fast the vines grow once you’re in the full swing of the growing season. You will need to check for tertiary vines every other day to keep them under control.
What does Tertiary vines look like
They usually look the same as normal vines. This is the way I tell. Follow the main vine or where the plant initially started to grow. From there, you should see side vines coming off of the main vine, these are good and you will want to keep them. Any vines that start growing off of the secondary vines are considered tertiary vines and these are the vines that you will want to prune They often look the same as the rest of the vines depending on the plant.
I think I’m understanding…. Is it ok to prune the small vines that reach out and try to grab at any object they can and curl themselves around it
I leave the feelers on. I will try and check with some other resources and see what they do.
Thanks for your tips! I have my first plant in a pot right now. I saved all the seeds from the nice n plump Momma pumpkin we had this past Halloween. The plant had 5 leaves on it (each ranging between 2-4 in. wide) The plant itself, so far is a little more than 6 in. tall. I removed the biggest leaf today due to yellowing, spotting, and a few holes eaten out near the tip. I hope I made the right decision by removing it before the condition worsened later on. It’s the first time I’ve ever really attempted to grow these lovely things, and it’s exciting to see how fast the seeds are taking off. So fsr, so good…im definately amazed and how fast the seeds have germinated. I decided to plant a few more seeds in the same pot. I planted 3 seeds, and not even 24 hours later, 2 of those little suckers already popped up through the soil! I was about to put the first one in the ground today, but since the seeds seem to be loving it’s company. I decided to wait just a bit longer before transplanting in the ground. What do you think? Any further feedback, I’d certainly appreciate. If not, just know your are STILL appreciated!
Oh, and by the way, the pot’s only about 9 inches deep. I just put the seeds in there to see if they’d sprout, which indeed they have! But obviously that’s not gonna hold out for too much longer. Anyways, thanks for post. Congratulations on your “Fruitful” bounty so far, and Best Wishes in the seasons to come!
-Olivia
Hi Olivia,
They often can become root bound if you keep them in the pot too long. I always try and transplant mine as soon as I see the third leaf. The plant will usually run opposite of the this leaf once planted, so be careful which direction you plant it.
Best of Luck,
Andy