A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Pumpkin & watermelon questions

I'm going to grow (or attempt to) pumpkins & watermelons in a community garden. Here are my questions:

1. How much space does 1 pumpkin plant need to produce a pumpkin?

2. Does 1 pumpkin plant produce more than 1 pumpkin?

3. How much space does 1 watermelon plant need to produce a watermelon?

4. Does 1 watermelon plant produce more than 1 watermelon?

5. How many plants (pumpkin & watermelon) do you think I should plant in 6 - 4'x4' plots? (I was thinking 3 pumpkin & 3 watermelon.)

Can't think of any others right now. I wanted to get some perspective before starting to plant in the next week or so.

Thanks a million! Sarah

Do you know what variety of pumpkins you are growing? Some take more space than others, some hybrids were bred with a compact vine in mind, but keep in mind compact still eats up some good sq footage. I'd say generally plan to get 3-5 usable(fully orange at harvest) pumpkins per vine. It can vary a lot I've found due to weather, bee pollination, and soil conditions. I'm not sure what you meant by 4'x4' in 6 spaces, I'd say 10'x10' per vine in my experience for the jack o lantern and more for bigger varieties 20'x20' minimum. Do you have corn or other areas like lawn you don't care to mow that you could let the vines ramble through? You can move the ends of vines before they send out roots to help direct them place & trim vines, but they usually don't flower any closer than 8' from the main root. Trimming the lengths will reduce yields also.

Can't help with watermelons the just don't do good for me, the biggest ones I've ever got were the size of softballs! Pumpkins on the other hand do great and I love growing them!

I volunteer at a community garden too and there is normally a 'master gardener' there, or one I can call for questions like that.
I just put my melon seedlings in the ground the other day. So, its still fresh in my mind....watermelons should be 2-5 feet apart and rows 4-6 feet apart. it's a little different for different varieties, but that is the basic.
anyone know if the same is true on cutting watermelon vines as soilmover was saying about the pumpkin vines - that they won't produce any closer than 8 ft from the main root?