Cutting back squash/melons

[Organichomegrown]

Hey all glad to be a member of these forums! This is my first post here and i'm going to make it about my vine plants. I've never grown anything before so this year I tried out a lot of different stuff to learn as much as I can.

I have a pumpkin and a watermelon plant next to each other, and am working both up a trellis I built along my back fence. However both plants are pretty much where I want them to be in terms of size, and have filled out the trellis very nicely.

Is it okay to keep cutting off new growth from all the vines to basically just keep it the same size it is now?

Will that affect the fruit or affect new fruit from forming within the plant?

Any answers would be greatly appreciated!

[Chris]

Yes it will affect the fruit. The plants produce all those leaves to help create energy for fruit production. You'll of course get lower yields, but it could be that you're okay with that.

If you want bigger fruit you can continue to let vines grow but remove any new fruit they set, to let all energy go into existing fruit (this is how they make those super big pumpkins). But if you just want fruit volume, and not necessarily super big (but fewer) fruits, generally let the thing grow.

[Organichomegrown]

Yes it will affect the fruit. The plants produce all those leaves to help create energy for fruit production. You'll of course get lower yields, but it could be that you're okay with that.

If you want bigger fruit you can continue to let vines grow but remove any new fruit they set, to let all energy go into existing fruit (this is how they make those super big pumpkins). But if you just want fruit volume, and not necessarily super big (but fewer) fruits, generally let the thing grow.

Thanks for the reply, I think I will just let the main vine keep growing and cut off any side shoots from there. There's a nice pumpkin forming (just the one so far), and I would hate to do something to ruin it, especially for how much garden real estate that plant is taking up!