Pumpkins in the green house - Carol Klein

[Taff the Chicken Man]

Hi all,
There is a lovely picture in Carol Kleins Grow Your Own Veg book with a signifcant crop of pumpkins hanging in the green house. I am lucky enough to have a decent size greenhouse with a hanging basket rail but not massive enough to allow them to trail all over the floor. I would like to utilise the rail to train along (similar to her photo on page 202). Does anyone have any experience in this, how is it done, what seed, what depth of container and could I use a hanging basket (appreciate large) to grow from?
I do have some Squashkin and a Mars F1 which I was going to try?
Carol Klein's book does not give any advice on this type of growing other than trailing but the results looked good, unless they are stuffed!!

[gojiberry]

Pumpkins are very hungry feeders and I would not think you will get a good result growing in a hanging basket even if you feed it every day. Would suggest a 2ft square hole 18in deep filled with well rotted manure and topped with a couple if inches of soil and plant your pumpkin in that. Be careful on variety of pumpkin as you want to be looking for a small fruit variety some of the big boys will grow to 300lb plus (world record is I believe over 1000lb). You could always go for a squash as they tend to be a nice size.

Ian

[King Carrot]

You could always try "Baby Bear" mini pumpkins - I usually get 6 - 7 per plant and they store well and taste good, I get the seed from Tuckers.

[TonyF]

I wouldn't grow them in baskets at all, ground planting for sure. And try the smaller round types, (see other thread on squashes) Jack be Little for pumpkins and Ropnde de Nice for courgettes.

[StephenH]

I might grow pumpkins next year, but I quite fancy trying to grow huge ones, just for the hell of it, though I realise that they're less use culinarily than little ones. What varieties grow big?

[Snadger]

I grew an Atlantic Giant plant in the corner of the greenhouse last year. It's roots were in the greenhouse bed soil but I allowed the plant to trail through a pane I took out so that the majority of the plant was outdoors.
They put on a lot of foliage so if it had been allowed to grow indoors I wouldn't have room for anything else!

[Seahorse]

I think the ones in Carol K's polytunnel are almost certainly planted in the ground, then guided up to rail they're hanging from. I would imagine any smallish variety would work.

[lyndap]

My 5year old grandson is wanting to grow a pumpkin and hes got a packet of 'mars'seed,trouble is I dont have much growing space and was thinking of putting into a large bag of compost and trailing up an old minigreenhouse frame.Def not a hanging basket job Taff but like you need advice cos I'm stuck to know what to do...grandkids and their ideas!!!