I bought some decorative pumpkins last fall for my porch & decided to save the seeds for planting this year. I know the seeds may not be true to fruit but if I get anything pumpkin-like from them I'll be happy.

I put all the fruit in the back yard to wait until spring but one (lunch lady gourd) started to rot before the end of the year so I just left it in the garden in hopes of maybe fertilizing the ground a little. Around mid-late February the gourd appeared to be dry & done decomping so I put it in the trash and to my surprise there were 8-10 pumpkin sprouts happily growing under the hollow gourd.

I hate to waste sprouts so I tried to salvage some of the plants and planted the largest one in a large container with potting soil. That silly thing has gone to town & is already almost 3' tall (trellised) now. It's had male flower buds on it for a while but none have opened & now I have lots of female flowers as well.

I'm nervous because I have one female flower that looks like its going to pop any day now but all the male flowers look at least a couple days behind. I tried to prune off some of the youngest male & female flowers to see if it would jump start the plant but I think it backfired and now there is a second female that is rapidly approaching blooming and the males still look a day or two behind them. I hate to lose fruit so I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to encourage the plant to produce male flowers faster (goofy, I know) or keep the female flower closed long enough to wait for the males to bloom? From what I've read it was supposed to have male blooms already by now but I haven't seen any so I'm a little worried. I know its not really time to be growing pumpkins yet but it wasn't intentional. I'd love to "salvage" this sprout into a productive plant if there's anything I can do for it (heat, fertilizer, etc).

Also, I'm a newbie gardener & bit off more than I can chew this year... I would love to plant multiple cucurbits (sp?) this year solely for fruit, not for seed. Would it be okay to plant different species of pumpkins, cucumbers & squash in the same yard this year without getting weird or altered fruits (look & taste)?

I know it's a lot to read but thanks in advance!