what kind of pumpkin are you growing and how are you growing it? i started mine on may 24, my vine are almost 8 feet long and i'm starting to get my first flowers. i'm growing in a raised bed 8'x8'x8" deep and i'm watering every other day and fertilizing once a week for now. i hope this helps.

i am growing jackolantern. what do you use to fertilize?

When did you plant it? It sounds like your plant it fine, pumpkins rest at that point in growth to establish a good root system. Soon it will start vining.

My June-planted squash are at about that stage -- putting down good roots and about to throw vines.

A light side-dressing of the appropriate fertilizer for your soil (and even a little extra nitrogen in whatever form you like), is good at this stage.

Its also a good time to put down a nice mulch between the hills.

thank you for the feedback, i put mine down about a month ago - i see that every couple of days a yellow flower sprouts, but then it goes a way or something. as you can tell, im new to the pumpkin growing experience, and just want to make sure im doing it right. how do you know when its about throw vines?

When the vines start running there's no mistaking it. They take off like rockets.

pumpkins grow a lot of male flowers, especially early on.
You will need female flowers, to be pollinated by the male to produce fruit. One more thing, The main branch gets mostly male flowers and the laterals will have more females than main. To encourage lateral branching, pinch off the tip of mains, when about 7 ft. long.
The female flowers have a tiny fruit under the flower, males do not. Also, if you don't have insects (bees ) to pollinate them you may not get any fruits. In this case you have to hand-pollinated them.

Hi jimjanco! I'm from NJ too, and my gourds, pumpkins, squash, etc, are all growing really slowly. I attribute it to the really gross amount of rain and fully overcast days we had in June. Where I live, 27 out of the 30 days of June it either rained or was completely overcast. It really put a damper on the heat-loving squash.

To remedy this, I took black Glad trash bags and laid them around the plants on the soil to keep the temps up. That, plus the sun we've had recently has really helped! They're starting to pep up now. Hopefully yours will too!

Best of luck!

I've been using miracle-gro for fertilizing, i also added a bunch of fish leftovers into the bed when i prepped it. i'm now laying off the fertilizer until i get the pumpkins going. i counted 9 female flowers tonight and lots of males. i have one female that should be ready in the morning, i'm keeping my finger crossed that i have a pumpkin started tommorrow.

hi everyone - thanks for the feedback. i wanted to share some pictures.

first - my jack b little vines - they are in a raised vegetable garden (courtesy of my very talented wife:) ) and they are growing like crazy!
http://jim6.decho.com/t/l6gjL2F4htMxDhO2FLSzl4/
http://jim6.decho.com/t/HOut3G0b0YiJt7B1IN6Hmk/

and my big pumpkin is below (there are two):
http://jim6.decho.com/t/ra9WdUmssSLM2B2FyIVyWc/

clearly these large jack o lantern pumpkins are not as big as they should be after 7 weeks in the dirt, right? I will try the black bag idea to warm the dirt. i water them daily - is that too much? I dont understand bc my jack b little are doing so good and in the past, ive seen pumpkins grow so quickly!

Pumpkins in herb garden?? they need a lot of space to run.
Hopefully you planted them on the edge and direct them away to some vacant field.

cyrus_gardner - you seem to have mis understood.

1 - the jack b little are planted in an herb garden - and are doing very well; google them - youll see that its not uncommon for this variety of pumpkin to grow in smaller confined areas, even patios planters.
2 - the problem isnt with them - they are actually doing really well; the problem seems to be with the large jack o lantern pumpkins ive planted (in their own patch) - do i need to cross polinate them or something? thanks much!