How to get cucurbits to fruit more quickly?

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Well, we just had “rainy week” (that one week in the middle of August when we get 95% of all the rain we get in summer), and something very funny happened.

Loads of cucurbits and beans that I’d planted in May never came up, and I’d assumed they’d become roly poly chow. Turns out . . . nope! They’re all sprouting now!

It seems they were waiting for a deluge of rain. (Our last frost date is usually, not by coincidence, also our last spring rain.)

I’ve watered some of those areas quite well, but not every day, so perhaps I should’ve been watering every day for a week in order to get them to come up. Live and learn!

It’s now mid-August, so it’s very unlikely they’ll produce seeds for me before the first frost date (in mid-October), but I’ll certainly let them try.

I have cantaloupes (specifically Charentais), fig-leaf gourd, some pepo winter squashes, and about 15 different watermelon varieties that all just came up. I’d love to be able to get some tasty fruits out of them, or at very least viable seeds. I have roughly about 60 days before the first frost date.

Any ideas to help them fruit quicker, so I can get some viable seeds?

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

This years experience is that lack of water seems to add several weeks to fruiting, even if they look like they are growing healthily. They are still high water demand plants, and unless there are some serious adaptions to that, it’s save to say that lack of water will slow them down. From emergence 2 months is still even under the best conditions cutting it tight, even just to get ripe seeds (usually they are ripe around 2 week before actual ripeness, maybe even little more), but it’s not far off for many cucurbit species. At least you can’t afford to be unlucky with the first frost, but even just a little lucky makes it much more likely.

Maybe it’s your soil that holds moisture differently that they didn’t sprout when sown. I had a really rough start at my survival plot sowing to fairly dry soil. I watered the hole/drench that sowed the seeds with the seeds, covered and then watered the top soil. They came up fast, some like maximas and cucumbers in numbers, summer squash and moschata not as evenly. They were clearly struggling after emergence, but it was quite amazing how they pushed through. Some seeds had even been pushed up by watering or soil had moved so that the seed was visible, but still they hung on. In the future I’ll have to try and rather make the mistake of sowing deeper. Not too deep ofcourse (my soil can get quite hard), but take in to account that seeds might be pushed up.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

I have extremely well-draining soil, which is to say “pure sand interspersed with a whole lot of huge rocks.” It doesn’t hold water well.

Man, “water them more” was the advice I was afraid you’d offer. (Wry grin.) I’ve noticed that cucurbits that aren’t well-watered still tend to fruit, but it takes a lot longer.

Is there anything else that can help? Does pruning vines help, for instance? If so, when, and how to best do it?

[Patate]

Maybe floating row covers will give a bit of a temperature boost? Depends how desperate you are to get seeds.

[MaartenFoubert]

Once you have a fruit, you can pinch off the tip of the vine and the remaining flowers, so the plant stops growing and put all its energy into the sole fruit remaining, allegedly.

Maarten

[RayS (Ray South)]

Expanding a little on Maarten’s advice I’ve read that nipping out the growing tip once three nodes have grown encourages branching and earlier fruiting. I haven’t tried this but it’s surely worth a go.

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Is this even before it has started to flower? Or should I be waiting until it has at least one female flower on it?

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

The fruit grows with the leaves that come after it in the vine so I don’t see tipping off the vine a good idea. The fruit also ripens about the same speed despite what happens to the other parts of the vine. It’s not a question of energy per se. Only stress might ripen them faster within the same weather, but that also might reduce seeds or make them seedless.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

I don’t think there are other things you can do. I suspect that mine lost the most time during the very early growth so it might be enough to keep them watered now that they are small and reduce that later. Getting a ripe fruit (or ripe seeds) early is mostly about them having as ideal conditions as possible. It’s not likely to make the fruit in a earlier leaf node than it’s genetically programmed to do for example. Also from flower to ripe fruit happens similarly despite what you do to the plant, except stress might make it faster (that might be only a week off). Stress might also make it that fruits have less seeds or none. I’m slightly worried for my cucurpits in the survivor plot if there isn’t rain. The plant where my moschata mix originates was quite stressed with lack of water and made 7 seeds. You probably will have at least slight stress even if you water them so you shouldn’t need to worry about that. Just give them little more water during early growth to get them going. Or covering late season is another option.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@UnicornEmily

Loads of cucurbits and beans that I’d planted in May never came up, and I’d assumed they’d become roly poly chow. Turns out . . . nope! They’re all sprouting now!

What you’ve just experienced is the soil seed bank! The seeds are smart & will wait till conditions are right for them to sprout. Your experience confirms what I know about the soil seed bank. It’s awesome that domesticated crops can do this too! OOh… do you think some seeds will survive frost laying dormant in soil seed bank?

@UnicornEmily

It’s now mid-August, so it’s very unlikely they’ll produce seeds for me before the first frost date (in mid-October), but I’ll certainly let them try.

Harvest fruits pre-maturely, just like how you did with your spaghetti x zucchini cross. Do you think 2 months will allow this to happen? I have a feeling maybe, especially if fruits harden their skin. You might have to hand pollinate in fall when weather is cooler cuz pollinators will be less active. This gives the perfect excuse/chance to mix pollens & make interspecies crosses! Do You still have some squashes fruting & flowering right now? Even if they don’t produce fruit, they will at least produce male flowers in 2 months & thus can contribute pollen into the landrace!

@UnicornEmily

I have cantaloupes (specifically Charentais), fig-leaf gourd, some pepo winter squashes, and about 15 different watermelon varieties that all just came up. I’d love to be able to get some tasty fruits out of them, or at very least viable seeds. I have roughly about 60 days before the first frost date.

AWESOME! They were all waiting! Watermelons may be a stretch, muskmelons if small may ripen but the squashes are more likely to ripen. But hey you can at least save the pollen & freeze it for next season! Simply just place male flowers on index card, let them shed their pollen & pour it into a plastic bag to put in the freezer. I’ve done this with squash, melons & watermelons are harder cuz they’re smaller. I wonder if you can just freeze the whole flower instead (After petals are removed)? Might be more convenient.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@UnicornEmily

Is there anything else that can help? Does pruning vines help, for instance? If so, when, and how to best do it?

If you have a huge rain barrel bucket, you can fill it with water so that it can radiate the heat to your squash. David The Good does this but he has much more abundant water. You could also make a quick hoop house before you get your first frost to protect ripening fruit. If you have a HUGE pot, maybe it’s worth carefully digging out the seedlings & transplanting them to a huge pot to grow indoors & hopefully survive into the next season? So you can than transplant to get a head start on spring? I don’t know but I do know that shining lights on plants for 23 hours per day makes them grow faster & mature quicker. This is why Alaskan Veggies are so big, they get this effect happening naturally. You can have money by just shining blue/red LED light during night only. Ideally Lazer Lights are the new thing where a Lazer shines on a Diffusers. That’s what the speed breeding people have taught me.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@VeggieSavage

@UnicornEmily

It’s now mid-August, so it’s very unlikely they’ll produce seeds for me before the first frost date (in mid-October), but I’ll certainly let them try.

Harvest fruits pre-maturely, just like how you did with your spaghetti x zucchini cross. Do you think 2 months will allow this to happen? I have a feeling maybe, especially if fruits harden their skin.

This is not gonna help with the seeds. Once you cut the umbilical cord, not much is going to happen. Instead the seeds are the first to ripen and harvesting immature fruits only gives the impression that they have ripened. I mean, you harvest fruits just after pollination, you’re not gonna get ripe seeds even if you let them mature off the vine for how long. The difference you might get is minimal. Some photos of cut squash show that seeds are fully formed around 20 days from pollination and even 15 days from pollination some seeds were quite full looking. Suspect summer squash might be faster as it’s so fast to start growing in most cases.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@JesseI

It’s not likely to make the fruit in a earlier leaf node than it’s genetically programmed to do for example. Also from flower to ripe fruit happens similarly despite what you do to the plant, except stress might make it faster (that might be only a week off). Stress might also make it that fruits have less seeds or none.

Very interesting, so it doesn’t work like Summer Pruning Apple Trees where it forms next year flower buds in the same year. What techniques can you do to shift the hormone balance to make more female/male flowers? I know Watermelon grafted onto a Squash may sometimes fruit better/faster.

@JesseI

Only stress might ripen them faster within the same weather, but that also might reduce seeds or make them seedless.

Yikes, and I thought Tetrlaploid x diploid watermelons to make triploid watermelons were seedless. Turns out I don’t need triploid watermelons if I can just stress out my non triploid watermelons . But the fruit won’t be any good reguardless right?

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

@JesseI

This is not gonna help with the seeds. Once you cut the umbilical cord, not much is going to happen.

It depends on when you cut the fruit off the vine. Emily harvested her squash off vine after 2 weeks when it’s skin was hard. She obtained fully mature seeds & got to enjoy the fully ripe fruit.

@JesseI

Instead the seeds are the first to ripen and harvesting immature fruits only gives the impression that they have ripened.

Interesting, so the seeds will be empty? Immature fruits only gives Impression that they have ripened? So what about partially color changeing tomato seeds? I’ve harvest fully sized grape tomatoes green & they ripened indoors to full red, seeds were plump just like any other tomato.

@JesseI

I mean, you harvest fruits just after pollination, you’re not gonna get ripe seeds even if you let them mature off the vine for how long.

Agreed, Every plant just depends on how long you can harvest to ripen off the vine. There’s a certain point when you will give ripe seeds.

@JesseI

Some photos of cut squash show that seeds are fully formed around 20 days from pollination and even 15 days from pollination some seeds were quite full looking.

Amazing! 15 days after pollination is about 2 weeks, just like Emiliy did when she harvested here Zucchinni x Spaghetti Squash immature. So the safe point to harvest for ripening off vine for squash is about 15-20 days then? Probably 30 days for slower ripening squash?

I hope the immature harvesting of fruits makes my squashes ripen eariler & earlier just like how it did for Lofthouse.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@VeggieSavage

@JesseI

It’s not likely to make the fruit in a earlier leaf node than it’s genetically programmed to do for example. Also from flower to ripe fruit happens similarly despite what you do to the plant, except stress might make it faster (that might be only a week off). Stress might also make it that fruits have less seeds or none.

Very interesting, so it doesn’t work like Summer Pruning Apple Trees where it forms next year flower buds in the same year. What techniques can you do to shift the hormone balance to make more female/male flowers? I know Watermelon grafted onto a Squash may sometimes fruit better/faster.

I don’t know if you can take many lessons about growing apples to growing cucurbits. I suspect the differences within variety/type are minimal no matter what you do besides making the growing conditions closer to ideal. For example, from start of vining to first female flower might be something like 10days. Not much room to do anything.

@VeggieSavage

@JesseI

Only stress might ripen them faster within the same weather, but that also might reduce seeds or make them seedless.

Yikes, and I thought Tetrlaploid x diploid watermelons to make triploid watermelons were seedless. Turns out I don’t need triploid watermelons if I can just stress out my non triploid watermelons . But the fruit won’t be any good reguardless right?

Watermelon I have had some fairly seedless, but hard to say if it was genetic or stress. It’s not as easy to stress watermelon with something like drought as other cucurbits. stress generally induces plants survival mode which is to make seeds. If dead seems imminent, better make at least some seeds and save some time. Even that isn’t a lot of time. Probably something like a week besides some extreme cases so it might not be worth to go full monty on stress.

[JesseI (Jesse Ilonen)]

@VeggieSavage

@JesseI

This is not gonna help with the seeds. Once you cut the umbilical cord, not much is going to happen.

It depends on when you cut the fruit off the vine. Emily harvested her squash off vine after 2 weeks when it’s skin was hard. She obtained fully mature seeds & got to enjoy the fully ripe fruit.

@JesseI

Instead the seeds are the first to ripen and harvesting immature fruits only gives the impression that they have ripened.

Interesting, so the seeds will be empty? Immature fruits only gives Impression that they have ripened? So what about partially color changeing tomato seeds? I’ve harvest fully sized grape tomatoes green & they ripened indoors to full red, seeds were plump just like any other tomato.

Yes, fruits ripen seeds first as a precaution. If you watch a nature documentary, you can see monkeys eating fruits that aren’t fully mature so it makes sense to ripen those seeds first. Tomato is even poisonous and bad tasting before that. Tomato releases the enzymes to ripen fruit once seeds are ripe. Some fruits might forcefully ripen off the vine even without fully ripe seeds, but those aren’t very tasty. Many of the tomatoes I grow this year were taken from green fruits because of LB. Better ofcourse if you can ripen and enjoy the fruit, but it’s not necessary.

@VeggieSavage

@JesseI

Some photos of cut squash show that seeds are fully formed around 20 days from pollination and even 15 days from pollination some seeds were quite full looking.

Amazing! 15 days after pollination is about 2 weeks, just like Emiliy did when she harvested here Zucchinni x Spaghetti Squash immature. So the safe point to harvest for ripening off vine for squash is about 15-20 days then? Probably 30 days for slower ripening squash?

I hope the immature harvesting of fruits makes my squashes ripen eariler & earlier just like how it did for Lofthouse.

Hard to put exact number. Depends on the weather more than anything. Here I’m hoping to get 30 days before I start to think them being on the save side. I did notice that on some summer squash I cut accidentally way before that there were some fairly full looking seeds. I always try to wait until fruits start to change colour because that’s fairly certain sign that seeds are ripe and collect then if need be. The seeds might not be ready when colour starts to change only if the fruits have some forced ripining, but in that case they might never ripen.

[MaartenFoubert]

Wow, what a great thread.

It motivated me to do a little experiment:
For my banana cantaloupes (the ones that did not fully sweeten before frost last year), I shortened the vine of one, pinched off all flowers and suckers (first pic).

Another vine with a similar sized fruit (second pic), will be used as baseline.

Once another fruit forms on a third vine, I will pinch off all the other flowers, suckers, but will let the vine itself grow.

Maarten

[UnicornEmily (Emily Martha Sorensen)]

Last year, I covered my squashes with a hoop hose and about 20 gallons of water tucked in there with them. They lasted from the point of the first frost (around October 15) to the point of the first hard freeze (around November 15). I can probably get away with doing the same thing this year with other cucurbits.

But . . . the nights are so much cooler in late October that plants grow more slowly than they do in midsummer, even if you protect them from frost. So that effectively gives me about two weeks of extra growth over the course of four weeks.

Would that be enough to make a difference?

It’s a lot of extra bother to go to, because I have to make sure to remove the plastic every morning and return it every evening. (If I don’t remove it before noon or put it back on before around 6pm, the plants will bake – I learned that last year.)

Still, if it would make the difference between viable seeds or not, it could be worth it, especially if I might be able to get the fruits along to a sufficiently ripe stage for them to finish ripening off the vine.

No matter what, I’ll probably have to cut them off the vines before the first hard freeze, because a hoop house won’t protect them from a hard freeze.

Now, my greenhouse would protect them, but I didn’t sow them in my greenhouse, and attempting to transplant them seems unwise, so . . . (wry grin).

Hmmm. I wonder if starting a mini compost pile around the edges of a hoop house would help keep it warmer at night. (Maybe a one-foot perimeter ring of wood chips with urine poured on top of it to provide some nitrogen to break it down.) That might provide more cold protection for longer, but even more importantly, it might raise nighttime temperatures enough for the plants to grow more quickly, so even if I still only get four weeks of season extension, those four weeks may accomplish three or four weeks’ worth of growing time instead of two.

Has anyone tried that? Do you think it would work?

[markwkidd]

Time to earliest viable squash seeds being such a seasonal topic, I’ve just been discussing it with @DebbieA and @KayEverts recently.

These photos show a pepo squash 22 days from apparent pollination. This is a line of squash that is being bred in part for earliness.

I am pretty sure these 22 day old seeds are not viable. The seeds seem fully formed but the embryos inside are just starting to develop.

I’m still waiting to confirm whether these germinate but I don’t think they will. I’ve only been trying to germinate these seeds for a couple of days.

On the other hand, I can say that the same lineage had good germination at 42 days last year.

I haven’t exactly planned my project to test the earliest seed viability this year but I’m hoping to flag another fruit to test around 30 days after pollination

[Patate]

Im thinking days are not equivalent everywhere, if someone has 20 degrees C daytime temperatures during ripening, see might become viable faster than at 15 degrees C.