Pumpkin Plant Clone

Treat clones as breeding stock, not just as copies. A cutting taken from a growing pumpkin plant comes up with that plant's genes, which means you choose exactly what stands next to what in a bed. That choice is where better plants come from.

Say your first bed of pumpkin seeds gave you two plants worth keeping. One grows fast but yields little, the other is the reverse, and neither is the plant you want. Clone both, set the clones around an empty spot in a large planter box and give them a head start. Then plant something fresh in the middle. As it grows it can take genes from its neighbours, and with some luck it ends up with the best of each parent.

When that plant appears, it becomes the only parent you cut from. Fill the next boxes with its clones alone, because a mixed bed keeps trading genes and can pull the line back down.

All of this ends in ordinary pumpkins. A better line simply means more of them sooner, for meals, for pumpkin pies and for whatever your clan carves in October.