Don’t Make This BIG MISTAKE Planting Cucumbers, Melons And Squash!

In this video, I share the most common mistake gardeners make when growing cucumbers, melons and squash plants. These plants are part of the cucurbit family. They are vigorous growing vegetables and are intolerant of cool temperatures. Whatever you do, don’t make this big mistake planting cucumbers, melons and squash!

Timing is the most important thing when growing cucurbits like cucumbers, zucchini, squashes, pumpkins, gourds, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and other melons. Mistiming your plants can lead to failure. If you follow the growing advice in this video, you will be much more likely to succeed when planting cucurbits.

Learn how to grow cucurbits from seed here: https://youtu.be/Qgun6DDy_b8?si=mZ8QI46IU4pDKBan

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 The #1 Mistake Gardeners Make
1:33 How Warm Weather Crops Differ
3:56 Don’t Start Cucumbers With Tomatoes!
5:45 Cucurbits Hate Cool Temperatures!
6:58 Planting Schedule
9:37 Exceptions To The Rule
11:32 Adventures With Dale

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34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #vegetablegardening #seedstarting

What’s growing on gardeners it’s Thursday February 15th and we are slowly coming out of winter here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina and that means that seed starting season is in full swing but wait don’t start your cucumber squash or melon plants until you watch this video I’m going to

Discuss the biggest mistake that Growers make when starting these plants and if you make this mistake you may find yourself throwing all your plants into the trash if you’re new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and

Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated and that mistake is that Growers start all of their warm weather seeds in a big Mass planting at roughly the same time you can’t do this

You can’t start your cucurbit seeds at the same time that you start your Nightshade seeds and other warm weather vegetables so what is a Nightshade the nightshade family includes tomatoes peppers and eggplant all very popular things that we grow from seed for our annual vegetable garden cucurbits on the

Other hand are the gourd family so your cucurbits include cucumbers your squashes like summer and winter squash like zucchini or Butternut things like pumpkins gourds and all of your melons so cantaloupe honeydew watermelon Etc so because we associate all of these fruiting annual vegetables with Summer gardening a lot of gardeners

Particularly new gardeners that haven’t grown from seed before tend to start all of these seeds at the exact same time time and that will lead to disaster in many cases and here is why the seeds that you see in my hand right here are my tomato and pepper plants they are all

Night shades I started these all 11 days ago in my office indoors under grow lights on a Seedling heating mat what you see right here are very typical results when seeds starting indoors all of these individual Pete pellets have two seeds in them and here I have all of

My tomato plants planted and after 11 days on a Seedling Heat at you’ll see that almost every Peak pellet has something that has germinated in it and that is pretty typical because tomatoes usually take 7 to 14 days to germinate in a controlled environment on a

Seedling heat mat set around about 80 to 85° Fahrenheit now in this tray right here I have predominantly Peppers this is a row of tomatoes and eggplant so that is why you see such good germination here but all the other four rows are peppers now peppers like it

Hotter than Tom tomes and they take longer to germinate so pepper germination is generally 10 to 14 days or longer on a Seedling heat mat so that’s why you see the peppers are taking so much longer to germinate so again usually 1 to 2 weeks for tomatoes

And about a week and a half to 2 and 1/2 weeks for Peppers so again when starting seedlings indoors this is pretty much the best case scenario that you can see when starting tomatoes and when starting peppers on a Seedling heat mat now every year I like to start some Tomatoes about

2 weeks in advance of my main crop and I like to get them out early in containers before my last frost date to get a jump start in the season and what you see right here are early tomatoes that I started 3 and 1/2 weeks ago so putting

The two plants side by side you can get a best case scenario of what you can expect where on the left you’ll see a Tomato’s progress a week and a half after you sew the seed and then on the right 3 and 1/2 weeks after you sew the

Seed so again roughly 11 days versus roughly 20 25 days that is the kind of progress that you can assume best case scenario and then 8 weeks later you wind up with this the perfect tomato transplant that is ready to go out into your garden generally speaking your

Night shades like tomatoes peppers and eggplant will be ready for transplant about 8 weeks after you sew that seed when you do it in a controlled environment indoors with a Seedling heat mat and grow lights and that is what you get right here that is 8 weeks of work

But here’s the problem cuer bits don’t grow like like night shades whereas your peppers tomato and eggplant take a week 2 weeks maybe even longer to germinate and then another 6 weeks after that in order to grow into mature transplants cucurbits germinate in no time I planted

The seed for this zucchini plant 6 days ago and look at it already that is only 6 days old so let’s compare the zucchini plant I just seed the seeds 6 days ago to a dwarf tomato that I seed 3 and 1/2 weeks ago here’s your six- day old

Zucchini plant it’s already start starting to develop true leaves in the center and then here is your 3 and 1/2 week old Rosella purple dwarf tomato plant you’ll see that in terms of actual vegetative Mass this Six-Day old zucchini plant is about the same as both

Of these tomato plants that have been in my office for almost a month at this point so if you plant your nightshades and your cucurbits at the same time your cucurbits are going to get way too big way too quickly whereas a tomato or a

Pepper or an eggplant takes 6 to 8 weeks weeks to really get to the point where you can transplant them these cucurbits from the days you plant the seed they can be ready in as soon as 3 weeks and whereas if I have a cold winter and I

Have to allow my tomatoes and peppers to sit in my sun room for another week or two I won’t be able to do that with my cucurbits after about 4 weeks they’re going to be way too big for me to maintain they’re going to start Vining

All over the place and keep in mind watermelons and cucumbers are going to be even worse because they’re going to creep and crawl all over your floor so if you start all of these things at the same time you are probably going to have to throw away all of your zucchini your

Other squash your melons your cucumbers Etc because they will rapidly outgrow their containers and you just won’t have anywhere to place them but wait there is another problem while none of these plants are tolerant of frost or freeze Frost and freeze will kill all of them your night shades are much more tolerant

Of cool nights that’s because your night shades are subtropical so they they are somewhat tolerant of Chilly nights while they don’t like it really cold if it dips into the low 40s or upper 30s for a few hours at night as long as they don’t get frosted and it doesn’t dip below

Freezing they will generally be okay they may turn a little purple and get some nutrient deficiencies but once the temperatures warm back up they will survive and they will pull through so while your tomatoes peppers eggplant and your other night shades are not cold tolerant they are somewhat cool tolerant

Your cucurbits on the other hand are not tolerant of cool temperatures at all they can be killed by frequent temperatures in the 40s they really need to be planted out into your garden when it’s 50° or warmer if it’s going to be colder than 50 I strongly recommend that

You actually cover your cucumbers your zucchini your squashes your melons and other things they are distinctly tropical they do not like cool nights and they can’t tolerate it like your night shades can so so for me I plant my night shades like my tomatoes peppers and eggplant out into my garden as soon

As I am sure that all of the frosts and freezes are done for the year and if it gets a little chilly at night no big deal they may grow a little slow in the beginning but they will eventually catch up and they’ll do well my cucurbits on

The other hand my cucumbers my zucchini my squash my melons I don’t plant them until three weeks after my last frost and freeze date because I need the nights to come up sufficiently warm and I want them to average at least 50° at night because they cannot tolerate the

Cool temperatures like the night shades can so what happens if I plant my nightshades in cuer bits at the exact same time well let’s do the math it’s going to take my nightshades about 6 to 8 weeks to be strong enough transplants to transplant them out into my garden

And my cuer bits are only going to take about 3 to four weeks so if I start them at the same time my cuer bits are already being started about 3 to 4 weeks too early early then if we get into the fact that I don’t want my cucurbits out

Into the garden until about 3 weeks after I plan out my night shades well that really means that if I start all my seeds at the same time I will be starting my cucumbers and zucchini and melons 6 to 7 weeks too early that is

How big of a difference in time it takes to start these seedlings so if you’re new to seed starting or you struggle to nail the timing this is generally what I recommend if you were growing your tomato Poes peppers and eggplant from seed you shouldn’t sew the seeds indoors

Until about 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date that way once they become mature enough transplants you can plant them out into your garden immediately but it still gives you roughly a two we buffer or so in case this is going to be a bad Cool Spring

And you have to hold them for another week or two before you can get them out into your yard and garden now your cuer bits on the other hand I generally don’t start them until a week before my last frost date that way they will be ready

For transplant about 3 weeks after my last frost date because I want that soil to warm up and I want the knights to break out of the upper 30s low 40s I want to get them into the 50s at night consistently and and the 70s during the

Day so again start your tomatoes peppers eggplant and any other night shades 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost date and you can start your cucumbers and your zucchini and melons and other cucurbits about one week before your last frost date that will generally speaking give

You the proper timing and of course there are some exceptions to this rule if you are growing underneath row covers or you have a way to protect your plants and they get artificially warmer during the day and they get warmer during the night your rules can change a little bit

If you live in zone 10 or somewhere where you almost never see Frost or freeze the rules may be a little bit different for you but for people like me and the over weling majority of people in the United States and on Earth in general that have to deal with frost and

Freezes this is the best timeline that I can give you and of course make sure you experiment with these dates because each individual climactic zone is going to fluctuate a little bit so keep a journal write down every single year where you start your seeds and after a couple of

Seasons you’ll get better at timing things and you should be able to figure out when it’s generally best to start your seed also keep in mind that sometimes you can have an early spring sometimes you can have a late spring so you never know what the weather is going

To give you but just do the best you can you may be off by a week or two that’s not a big deal what we’re trying to do here is avoid having to throw away seedlings because they get so big we can’t keep them alive indoors anymore

And finally let’s have a moment of silence for this zucchini plant right here I started this seed just to make this video and teach this lesson and I have no way of keeping this plant alive for the next 2 months so please do not let this plant die in vain and heed this

Warning and that right there is the biggest mistake that gardeners make when growing cuer bits from seed so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so

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Everything I use in real life and while you’re down there check out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video H H oh is somebody hungry

Oh I think it’s time to feed Dale breakfast he let it be known okay buddy let’s get your hungries all right d we’re almost out of homemade food so I had to give you some dry food and judging by your excitement this morning you’re not really going to mind all that

Much all right buddy enjoy your breakfast