Cucumbers, summer squash, and
winter squash are all cucurbits. They share similarities and differences.
Cucumbers are a short-season crop, and produce continually before dying.
Succession planting every 2-3 weeks ensures a continuous harvest throughout the
season. They grow rambling vines, all starting from one main vine. Summer
squash are mostly similar to cucumbers, although most varieties grow as a bush
from which rambling vines may emerge. They are also a short-season planting and
succession planting works well for a continuous harvest of summer squash.
Winter squash, unlike summer squash, are harvested when mature, that is when
the rind of the fruit is thick. For this reason they are long-season crops that
will produce successfully only a limited amount of fruits per plant, which will
have to mature throughout the season. Like cucumbers, they grow a main rambling
vine, from which secondary rambling vines extend. Bush winter squash varieties
also exist for gardeners with limited space.
Pruning and trellising can be
helpful for the management of cucumbers, summer squash and winter squash, but
are in no way necessary; all of these crops can be allowed to spread directly
on the ground and all over the place. There are, though, some advantages to
pruning and trellising.
Pruning
Like for most crops, pruning
cucurbits may be for reasons of plant health and management. Pruning is also
necessary if growing cucumbers or summer squash vertically. When pruning,
follow the general rules of hygiene,
and cut vines either at a leaf joint (leaving the joint itself on the living
plant) or as close as possible to the main vine or bush, depending on the type
of cucurbit.
Removing excess anther-bearing
flowers (flowers that produce pollen)
All squash produce both
anther-bearing and ovary-bearing flowers. The pollen from the anthers must be
carried to the ovaries in order to get fruit production; otherwise the ovaries
die. Pollinators can do that just well, but hand pollinating can be helpful
(see below). Especially if hand-pollinating squash or cucumber, there will be
many more anther-bearing flowers than are necessary to pollinate all the
ovary-bearing flowers you need. It is usually safe to remove up to half or even
2/3 of the anther-bearing flowers if you want to eat them.
Pruning excess vines
If the vines of your cucurbits
are starting to take all over the place, they can be gently picked up (be
careful, as they may have grown roots under leaf nodes) and moves somewhere
else, like outside the garden and over a useless lawn. If space really is an
issue, it is also possible to prune summer squash to 2-4 rambling vines, by cutting
part of the vines or whole vines. In winter squash, non-producing secondary
vines can be removed, but pruning should wait until there are already a few
fruits going. For all cucurbits, removing vines will result in less production.
An alternative can be to remove the growing tip of the vines a few leaves after a
fruit, so the plant stops expanding in that direction.
Removing excess foliage
Not recommended for winter
squash, as they need quite a lot of energy to mature the fruits, but will
probably become necessary for disease management. Indeed, squash and cucumber
are, most years, plagued by a fungal disease called powdery mildew, which is
brought up North in Canada by strong weather systems such as hurricane tails
from the United States. The disease attacks the leaves of some plants, mostly
cucurbits, and is noticeable by the white powder that develops on leaves, which
then yellow, wilt, and die. It spreads like crazy, carried by wind or water,
and is hard to prevent and to control. Removing leaves as soon as infected can
slow down the spread of the disease and give some time to the plants. Hygiene
is the rule in order to prevent spreading the fungus to other plants; the
gardener is a vector of diseases, after all. Infected leaves should be disposed
of far away or burned. Do not compost them.
Aside from diseases, foliage can
be removed from summer squash that produce rambling vines, like zucchini. Make
sure to leave 5-6 leaves on each side of fruits to shade them well. Some
gardeners remove leaves for reasons of management, as it is easier this way to
notice when fruits are ready to harvest. It is not usual for summer squash
fruits to go unnoticed for a while, hidden by a dense foliage, only to be found
later in the season, too big to be eaten. Removing foliage before powdery
mildew kicks in is also a better way to prevent the disease, or at least major
damages to the crop.
Removing excess fruits
There is rarely such thing as excess fruits for most gardeners, and this practice is
indeed controversial, but some gardeners like to remove smaller fruits from
winter or summer squash in order to allow others to mature more rapidly. It
sounds reasonable for winter squash, especially when the end of the season is a
few weeks away and the fruits have yet to mature fully. For summer squash,
though, it usually results in more loss of production than anything else. There
is usually no reason to remove fruits in cucumbers.
For all cucurbits, though,
removing weird-looking and diseased fruits is recommended, so as to make sure
that the energy of the plant doesn’t go to waste, if the fruit ends up rotting
or being inedible for some reason.
Pruning suckers and secondary
vines for trellising
Like tomatoes, cucumbers have a sucker growing
at each leaf joint, between the leaf itself and the main stem. Those suckers,
if allowed to grow, will become stems that will produce more cucumbers. In
addition to a sucker, though, each leaf joint on a cucumber plant also produces
a pollen-producing flower, an ovary-bearing flower, as well as a fragile
tendril that wraps around nearby objects for support and achoring.
When trellising, the first 4-6
suckers need to be removed to allow the main stem to get on the trellis. Once
the plant is on the trellis, the suckers can be allowed to grow into secondary
vines on the trellis. The main vine and secondary vines should be pruned near a
leaf joint when growing out of the trellis. It’s also possible to try to train
the vines back on the trellis, in which case pruning some leaves would be
recommended if the trellis becomes too crowded.
Trellising
Vertical trellis via forums.gardenweb.com |
Cucumbers and summer squash with
rambling vines can be trained on an upright trellis, a sloping trellis, or
simply on a horizontal trellis to provide shade to another crop. Winter squash,
producing heavy fruits, can’t be trained on a too steep sloping trellis, as the
weight of the fruits would probably result in damage to the stem. In any case,
although trellising helps for disease management, easier harvest (the fruits
are easier to monitor), and results in straighter and better-looking fruits for
cucumbers, the additional air flow around the plant means that the plants will
need more water.
Leaning trellis via floridavegetablegarden.com |
To train a cucurbit plant on a
trellis, the gardener must gently direct the vine on the trellis to allow the
tendrils to attach to the support. On most sloping trellises, the support
provided by the tendrils will be enough for the plant to climb on its own. On
vertical trellises, though, which are usually used for cucumbers, the vines
will need to be attached to the trellis every foot or so with a special clip,
or any type of garden twine. As is the case for tomatoes, thin twine should be avoided, as
it will damage the stem.
Horizontal trellis via buildavictorygarden.com |
Hand pollination
The idea here is basically for
the gardener to become the pollinator in order to ensure pollination of
ovary-bearing flowers. Anther-bearing flowers usually have a thin and long
stem, compared to that of ovary-bearing flowers, which is short and fat and may
look like a tiny fruit (which it is).
To hand pollinate, simply pick a
pollen-producing flower while ovary flowers are open (from 10am to noonish),
remove the petals from the anther flower, and use it like a brush to rub the
anthers on the central part of the ovary flowers. One anther flower can
pollinize 2-3 ovary flowers. For a more detailed explanation, see this very
helpful, step-by-step
illustrated how-to.
More resources
All the information you need to grow cucumbers : http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scenef65b.html
A neat YouTube video to show you how to prune cucumbers for
trellising : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9YQ2WsubpI
6 comments:
This is such a helpful post! I love squash
La coltivazione di cucurbitacee ha bisogno di una buona ventilazione per prevenire malattie micotiche, cucumber trellis vertical, e la rete per cetrioli come spalliera lo permette.
Very Good gardening Ideas. PlantscapeInc is known for best landscaping And gardening Artificial Plants.
the lawn in area of the landscape is gone and the excess rainwater is piped under the mulched path to a dry well. It's important for us to keep as much rainwater on our properties as possible to reduce pollution in our waterways.lawn mowers lowes
Nice post! Currently we are preparing our garden for growing potatoes.
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