The proper way to sow cukes, melons, and squash?

[PunkRotten]

Hi,

I think I am sowing them all wrong. I usually will put a few seeds in a hole and then thin it all down to a single vine. Like for my trellises, if I plant melons or cukes, I will space the plantings 10 inches or so apart and sow several seeds. By the end of it all I got 3 single vines growing up a trellis with good spacing between eachother. I am growing Bush Buttercup squash in 5 gallon pots. I sowed 3 seeds each and all came up. I thinned one to a single plant and left the other with the 3 plants. The single plant was growing more robust so I finally thinned the other to a single.

Now, I also sowed some watermelons and pumpkins in the ground. I tried to follow the instructions about "hilling" them. What I did was, I sowed several seeds in one hole and a few inches away a few more. I thinned a few plants but have 2-3 vines closed to eachother. Is this the correct way to do it? Is it also ok that there are multiple plants growing out of a single hole?

Thanks

[imafan26]

I think you are doing it correctly. I do plant my cucumbers in sets of 2 or 3, but I let all of them grow. I plant just one squash seed, most of the time it comes up in a week. If it does not then I replant or I plant in containers and transplant them out. It wastes less seed that way.

[applestar]

I sowed several seeds in one hole

I think you want to sow the seeds apart from each other on the hill so they don't crowd each other as they come up. I would sow extra seeds few inches apart and keep the best ones after first true leaf.

[estorms]

I think it is more important how to make your hill. I put a bushel of compost or aged manure on the ground, cover it with a little dirt, lay the seeds on top, and cover with a little more dirt. Tamp it down and water it. The manure holds water, but you will still have to keep it watered as it is raised. Keep chickens away from it. They will scratch it up. My mother dug shallow holes in the garden, filled them with kitchen scraps all winter, and planted her vines in the Spring. Often there were already potatoes growing in the holes from the eyes she had cut out and tossed out with the peels.

[jemsister]

I sowed several seeds in one hole

I think you want to sow the seeds apart from each other on the hill so they don't crowd each other as they come up. I would sow extra seeds few inches apart and keep the best ones after first true leaf.

This is how I do it as well. I sow several, but only one seed per hole. And actually, with my cukes and crooknecks, only one seed didn't come up (one of the cukes). I planted six of each, planning to thin down to two or three.

[Gary350]

Plant puke seeds in a row like corn with seeds 1 foot apart. It works great for melons too.

[imafan26]

I missed the part where you said it was all in one hole. I do usually put the seeds in separate holes, although sometimes I will plant two seeds of corn in the same hole and thin them. Corn needs to come up all at the same time so they can pollinate well, so I rather sew two seeds than have a gap.

For the most par,t cukes, melons and squash are pretty easy to germinate with just one seed and they germinate fast enough that I don't usually need to plant extras for insurance.

I hate to kill anything that is alive and well and as I don't have the space or the need to grow multiple zucchini or squash vines and I hate to throw away perfectly good seedlings, so I just plant one seed at a time.

[jal_ut]

Proper way? Whatever works for you.

Here is what I do: Of course I garden in a field not a bed or pot. I put 5 seeds in a small area about ten inches across. Just put the seed around in a circle so they are separated a little, not on top of each other.
Melons, squash and cucumbers. No thinning.

I always called this a hill, even though it is not actually hilled up nor do I do any special work to put manure or compost in the "hill". I prep the whole field with manure beforehand. The roots of these plants will go out quite a distance and use the whole area for gathering water and nutrients. You don't need to pile it up for them. It has been shown that even long vines like pumpkins will have roots under everywhere the vines go. The vines even send down roots at the leaf nodes.

At any rate, the plants come up and will each go out in a different direction like the spokes on a wheel. Makes quite a clump on zucchini and crooknecks by the time they grow up. The vining plants will cover a large area and grow into and over other things nearby. I like to give them at least 6 feet from other plantings and it works out.

I have planted in rows too. For cukes I put the seed 6 inches apart all down the row. For pumpkins about 12 inches. Best leave 4 feet both sides of the row on cukes and eight feet on pumpkins.

Cucumbers work well in rows, but for the other things I still prefer hills. (even if they are not really hills) I do not trellis any of these crops. Just let them sprawl.