Tag: cucurbit

Melons in training

26 Jun 202625 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Melons have been out from under row cover for a couple days now, and seem fine. They look a little more vibrantly green in the photo than they do to me. It’s been weeks now of more cloud than sun, and none of the crops have the deep green, raring to grow look so far. But hot sunny days are forecast. I moved the vines to lean on the twine so they can head up. The tendrils haven’t figured it out yet. Those little yellow spots on the one leaf at the bottom left are maybe some sort of bacterial attack. Being out in open with good fresh air circulation will hopefully keep that from spreading. I’ll remove the leaf if it gets worse.

Since I don’t use pesticides, other than occasional plant soap spray, it’s really up to the plants to do their thing. The row cover as cucumber beetle protection worked, although using heavier cover made it more humid under there, perhaps promoting the bacterial spots. Giving them something to climb improves air and keeps them off wet ground. I try to be helpful, without getting in the way! :)

Thirstier and thirstier

4 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Watering in seedlings as they harden off

The seedlings are filling out fast now, with full days in the sun. Feels like they’re raring to break out! Stuck in their little pots, they could be being called to by their siblings already transplanted out in the field. Who knows?! One thing for sure is how fast they’re soaking up water now. Of course, it makes sense, it’s no surprise—but the little routine meter in my head sees that a good watering lasted a couple of days just a week ago, and now, especially in the tiny plug sheet cells, the surface is dry in hours and the trays feel light. There’s the sun and the wind to help evaporation, but still—thirstier and thirstier as they wait for the field!

Thigmomorphogenesis

21 May 202619 May 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Squash seedlings in a stiff breeze—gale-force wind would’ve made for a more dramatic image, but thankfully not. This bending and fluttering of leaves is another benefit, besides the sun, of taking indoor-started seedlings out into the real world.

Movement, like blowing in the wind, triggers the catchily named thigmomorphogenesis process in plants, where they dramatically toughen up after getting a little pushed around. It could be wind, a pummeling rain, animals or hands brushing by or moving them about. Makes perfect sense for them to armor up.

I’m not particularly into the details of how they change, develop sturdier stems and whatnot—tougher seems to sum it up just fine—but it’s good to know about (I used to use an oscillating fan in winter). And I really like the term. For most of my life, my casual thought was that knowing everything would be cool, kind of like AI tries to today. At one point, though, conveniently marked by a certain blog post, my thinking flipped to often wanting to know less. Not cheering for ignorance, just comfortably sticking with what’s necessary for the moment. So, thigmomorphogenesis—long, unwieldy, yet surprisingly easy to pronounce after a couple of tries!

Zukes vs cukes

17 May 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Zukes vs cukes—same family, different natures. On the left, zucchini are big, bold, and prolific with fruit that blow up to dirigible class if you take your eye off of them and stop harvesting more or less daily. On the right, cucumber, more modest in appearance, preferring to vine out than shoot up, unless trellised. Cukes are about equally prolific in the quantity of fruit as the zukes, but not so prone to expanding when left unharvested. Here, barely two weeks from being seeds in a package, with very similar seed leaves (the first two leaves to come out), the difference in their true leaf size already displays their separate ways. Today, they’re out in the sun.

Cucurbits!

21 May 202416 May 2024 by Mike (tfb)

Cucurbit, from Cucurbitaceae, is a useful word! How else would you refer to the large squash-and-melon family that includes winter squash like acorn and butternut, summer squash like zucchini, pumpkins, gourds, melons (cantaloupe, watermelon, and so on), cucumbers, even the fruit that dries out to become loofah sponges. All the same plant family, all with similar-looking leaves and sprawling vined growth. I’ve on and off wanted to learn the scientific Latin-word plant classification system. I’ve even semi-memorized the basics more than once, then soon forgotten, because there’s no actual use for it in my day to day. But some terms, like cucurbits, do come in handy…

Weekly Harvest Share #2

19 Apr 202219 Aug 2011 by Mike (tfb)

A pretty satisfying second installment of our “experimental” Weekly Harvest Share: “Like CSA, but one week at a time…”! Satisfying because, for the first time this season, harvest day felt kinda normal, with around 20 items harvested, enough variety to have to pick what went into the shares. And the winners, the veggies that made it through thick and thin: kale (Red Russian—no worries about running out of RR…), beets (Kestrel), carrots (Nelson), zucchini (Golden Dawn III, always there in numbers), cukes (Fanfare, Lemon), baby leaf lettuce (house blend, and a nice first cut!), beans (Jade, Indy Gold, first picking of this planting), assorted cherry tomatoes, green onion (Ramrod), sweet pepper (Cubanelle, picked young and green), onion (yellow cooking, from sets, kinda…compact), peppermint & spearmint (bagged, for tea!), and eggplant (old reliable Dusky). So, better late than never!

Checking under row cover

23 Mar 201318 Jun 2008 by Mike (tfb)

Three weeks ago, it was floating row cover everywhere. So, what was it worth? Today, I checked things out. Overall, growth has been startlingly slow, due to the lack of sun. This is really noticeable in the summer squash (above), which could be huge at this point, but…aren’t. Under cover, these zucchini (I didn’t check the variety) are doing fine, no cucumber beetle damage, but of course, weeds are doing fine as well: unmolested under there, pigweed runs rampant. I’ll take the cover off here in another week or so, and then there’ll be a whole lotta weeding to do… I removed the cover from the first beds of cauliflower (Snow Crown) and broccoli (below), they’re big enough to take a little flea beetle munching. The leaves have shaded out much of the potential weed action in the beds, but you can see a nice collection in the path (top center, where the row cover ends). The plants look untouched, although the flea beetles managed to get under and at the kale and collards, (they’re out of sight just to the left)—I left them covered, back in a week. If there’s any doubt about what the FBs will do, just check the radishes, which grow MUCH faster than these guys and can survive the damage…

Back with the cucurbits, the cucumbers are the most noticeably slow: after a month, they’re hardly bigger than the transplants they started as (hope it’s all going into the roots!)… I’ve cleared away the weeds between a couple of the plants, beetle damage is minimal (they tend to get in at the ends of rows, where the cover can get blown up by the wind), but there are weeds everywhere. Cover goes back on here for a while. Weird stunting weather and floating row cover: not the most peaceful and inspiring natural garden combo, but it should all straighten out in a bit… ;)