Update
The experiment has delivered some initial results. While the plant started to grow a nice sized pumpkin, it appears that the vining plant does not like growing in the vertical direction. All of the leaves have slowly died off and the plant does not appear to be healthy.
As a controlled comparison, I had a plant that was started from seed at the same time that was grown in the horizontal orientation. As you can see in the photograph on the right, this plant appears to still be thriving and growing along the ground.
june 15, 2007
If you’ve never attempted to grow pumpkins in your own garden, then you likely don’t realize the amount of space the plants require to sustain a single pumpkin. While pumpkin plants, being in the squash family, are relatively easy to grow from seed, they are a pain to maintain (unless you have acres of land). As a result, I’m trying a simple experiment this year in growing pumpkins vertically from an irrigated hanging pot at the top of a lattice. You can see the interim results below with the first photograph showing the plant already 4′ long. The second photo shows a close-up of a “pregnant flower” becoming a pumpkin.
