CUCURBITS web: www.growmyownfood.com email: permaculturegardens@ gmail.com Backyard Cultivation Booklet Cucurbits are a heat-loving, productive family of plants that include some of the oldest domesticated plants in human history. Although most cucurbits have Cucurbits are easy similar roots, growth, and fruits, there is considerable diversity in the shape, size, and taste of its fruits. Cucurbits are some of the easiest to grow plants you to grow and produce can find in your vegetable garden and can produce massive harvests, but they also bountiful harvests, but have a lot of bug, fungal and bacterial issues that need to be managed effectively. Although every part of the cucurbit plant can be eaten, the fruits are usually what we they need to be managed cultivate in our gardens. You can eat the immature fruit (cucumber, summer squash) or the mature fruit that have formed a hard rind (pumpkin, melon). Growing cucumbers, melons, well to succeed. summer squash, and pumpkins (winter squash) is synonmous with summer gardening, since these plants can form large vines that continuously pump out fruits all season long. Winter squash/pumpkins can also be stored for an extended period of time, sometimes up to 6 months. This makes winter squash a great storage crop for the small garden, since a single plant has the potential to produce over 50lbs of squash than can then be consumed progressively over the next few months. Many harvest festivals use cucurbits as their main theme to celebrate their cultural importance in providing a valuable and tasty food source. Cucurbits are generally heavy feeders that don’t like cold temperatures, so start them after all chances of frost have passed (with low temperatures in the upper 40s). They prefer full sun and need good soil drainage to reduce the risk of fungal infections. They germinate quickly and develop fast, but need a long time to establish themselves before they generate a lot of fruit. The heaviest producing cucurbits are usually vining plants, sometimes stretching over 40-50 feet long in the case of massive pumpkins. Because of this, it makes sense to trellis cucurbit vines as much as possible in the 3rd dimension to maximize space. separating the HEIRLOOM CORNER FRUIT from the VINE There are 4 commonly known subspecies of squash (winter and summer), Varieties to take a known as mixta, moschata, pepo and maxima. Although each of these subspecies are extremely diverse in shape, color, and size, there are a few look at… tips that you can leverage to choose which variety is best for your garden. RAMPICANTE Cucurbitae pepo have been the most domesticated, and generally include most TROMBONCINO (ZUCCHINI). summer squash, including zucchini, acorn squash and spaghetti squash. Incredibly productive climbing Unfortunately they also are the most susceptible to insect pests. summer squash that readily lays Cucurbitae maxima are the kings of the down roots along it’s massive, vining vegetable world, growing fruit to huge framework. Resistant to bacterial dimensions. They are generally not good wilt, it produces tasty elongated choices for the home garden though, as fruits that hang down from the vines they are not very productive in small in the shape of a trumpet. spaces. JIAPANESE LONG CUCUMBER. Moschata squash are a great Your best bet for winter squash in small All Japanese cucumbers are prolific, gardens are Cucurbitae moschata (includes but this variety is unique in choice for home gardeners to butternut and other oblong fruits) since producing long thin cucumbers up to experiment with winter squash. they can be very productive, are more 19” that are crispy and refreshing. resistant to insects and diseases, and store well for extended winter eating. WINTER LUXURY PUMPKIN. This pumpkin plant will grow to 10 to 20 feet long, short for a pumpkin, with 4-5 fruit each weighing 5-7 lbs. Manageable and productive, the pumpkin flesh is very sweet and ideal for making pumpkin pies and other flavorful dishes. COLLECTIVE FARM WOMAN MELON. This melon plant continuously produces 3-4 lb melons that are sweet like a honeydew, but with a crisp texture. Melons are easy to identify as being ripe when the melons turn yellow. Winter sqush come in diverse shapes and can vary a lot in how sweet they are, how thick their skins are, and their resistance to pests. To squash bugs or not There are 3 main garden pests of rot for no reason). cucurbits; 2 in the beetle family and 1 moth; squash bugs, cucumber beetles Cucumber beetles are small yellow and squash vine borers. beetles with either black spots or stripes. They are much harder to catch than Squash bugs are gray or brown squat squash bugs and unfortunately do often beetles that look a lot like stink bugs but carry Erwinia tracheiphila, the bacteria prefer to target cucurbits. They don’t responsible for bacterial wilt. The carry any bacterial diseases, but their bite most effective way to deal with them contains plant toxins that stop the flow of is to grow cucurbit varieties that are nutrients and water in the cucurbit’s leaves. resistant to wilt (these include pumpkins, They like to lay their small golden eggs in some varieties of winter squash, and a small cluster of rows on the underside of watermelons). plant’s leaves. When they hatch, they can form a swarm of small white nymphs that Squash vine borers are less frequent pests can rapidly destroy your cucurbit plant. Look for small golden eggs on the that target squash and pumpkins by laying eggs at the base of young plants; The best defense for squash bugs is to underside of your cucurbit leaves these eggs then hatch larvae that tunnel break the cycle of reproduction and remove and eliminate before they hatch into the plant’s stem. Covering the stem eggs diligently if you see signs of squash in it’s early stages is useful as well as bug infestation (this is actually quite easy into nymphs. growing squash varietes that root along to identify as individual leaves that seem to the stem will prevent borer damage. DIGGING IN THE DIRT Effective Pollination Most cucurbits have both male and female flowers on the same plant, allowing you to get fruit with only one plant. It helps to be able to identify the male and female flowers so you can manage your fruit production more efficiently. Cucurbits usually produce a good number of male flowers before they grow a female flower. An easy way to identify the flowers is to look at the stem connected to the flower. If it is skinny and quite often long, it is a male flower. If it is somewhat bulbous, then it is a female flower. When the female flower gets pollinated, it will start to fatten and extend as the flower dies and drops off. wait till a female flower opens on it’s If the female flower is not adequately first day (it will close up in the next 2-3 pollinated, it can still swell, but will quickly days). Take the brush and lighly brush get soft and shrivel up. In some cases, it’s the stigmas in the female flower with the useful to hand-pollinate the female flowers pollen. to ensure better pollination. In order to not tax the plant too much, To do this, take a small brush and lightly only let 2-3 female flowers get pollinated brush along the anther of the male flower at any one time; otherwise the plant will to pick up the sticky yellow pollen. Then spend all of it’s energy maturing fruit and not growing any larger. Growing Up Cucurbit vines can get long; sometimes Cucurbits send out tendrils to naturally upwards of 50-60 feet long from a single climb, so you won’t have to tie them to plant. On large farms, it isn’t a problem your vertical supports, but make sure that to let these monster plants sprawl on the your support structure is strong enough to ground, but in our small suburban gardens hold the weight of the vines and potential we want to make sure that every square fruit. foot of space is efficiently used. Cucurbit vines are tough enough to Using a trellis, fence, or arbor to support support fruit weighing up to 10lbs, but you your cucurbit vines will allow you to use can also tie up your fruit using mesh bags less space for the roots of the cucurbit (the supermarket bags that lemons and plant, which can easily be contained within oranges ship in) or row cover tied around 2-4 square feet of space. The plants will the bottom of the fruit against the vertical naturally climb up to the sun, so they support for additional security. require little maintenance for their growth. Garden Tip #1 Garden Tip #2 Garden Tip #3 Powdery mildew and other fungal Many gardeners don’t realize that the Cucurbits are some of the heaviest diseases can be a problem with the large fruit are not the only edible part of many feeders in your garden, so it’s important leaves of cucurbit plants. The leaves are cucurbit plants. Squash blossoms from to make sure your soil is ready for them quite fragile and can be easily colonized cucubitae pepo (zucchini, spaghetti before you plant. If you have access to by fungal spores. Planting varieties squash, acorn squash) can be harvested a rich compost or green mulch produced that are naturally resistant to powdery just after they open. It’s usually best to from dynamic accumlators (comfrey, mildew are your best bet, but you can eat the male flowers since they have a okra, sweet potato, etc.), mix that into also use organic homemade sprays to stem and won’t reduce your fruit harvest the topsoil and also make sure there is reduce fungal infection.