We planted pumpkins for the first time. Lots of people keep telling us that we need to pinch off the flowers?

we live in the state of WI. We started them from seeds in drit. we planted them in the ground 2 1/2 to 3 weeks ago. We don't have any sing of flowers yet but just want to know what to do when they come. I really hope they grow if not we will have to go to the pumpkin farm.


Thanks for all youre help.

We planted pumpkins for the first time. Lots of people keep telling us that we need to pinch off the flowers?
By pinching off SOME of the soon to appear flowers, the remaining ones recieve more nutrients, thus provideing larger pumpkins. If you don't care if you have a few large pumpkins, just leave the flowers on. You'll have a bunch of normal sized pumpkins.
Reply:The fewer blooms the plant has to feed, the larger the pumpkins.. I have a friend who has consistently grown pumpkins in the 300-350 lb. range. He only allows 2-3 blooms on his plants at a growth time. Really depends on how big you want the friut to be.
Reply:If you pinch off ALL the flowers you won't have any pumpkins, since that's where they form. However, it is true that if you thin them out, the ones you leave will have a better chance to be larger/healthier. Champion growers (for largest pumpkin) leave only one per vine.
Reply:It is true about the number of flowers per plant, but keep in mind the pumpkin does both male and female flowers. You can tell the female by looking at it, at the bottom of the flower where it joins the stem will be a bulb type structure where as the male does not have that. If you pinch pinch males first after they are on awhile since you need them to pollinate the female flowers. From there you can pinch back them and a few of the females as well if you are shooting for really big pumpkins, the less flowers the bigger the pumpkin. I hope this helps out.