The official heat wave of the last several days is over, and now it’s drizzly and 65. There was a heat wave in my apartment, too. When the air conditioning is off during the day, my boxy little Federal-style rowhouse apartment heats up like a brick oven. A few weeks ago I stuck some zucchini, crookneck squash, tromboncino, and watermelon seeds into peat pots, but they failed to germinate quickly. I had given up on them, but the heat in my apartment was apparently the wake-up call these cucurbits needed. They’ve started sending up these thick stems with huge, alien-like cotyledons.
They’re growing incredibly quickly now. For context, the spindly little shoots on the left are tomatillo seedlings that germinated two weeks ago. The cucurbits have only been up for a couple of days. They kind of remind me of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. If they ask me to feed them blood, I’ll get nervous.
If they invade, we’ll retreat to my basement bunker, zombie-movie style.
Actually have a question. When you seed cucurbits inside, how big can you let them get? Mine grew CRAZY fast and I had to put them out when it was still rather cold. and becuase I didn’t want the roots to get too big, the soil kinda feel apart when I put them out. Is there some sort of cucurbits secret I’m not aware of? peat pots? Any info would be helpful as I plan to write an article about my experience for my blogazine: urbanfarming.magazines.me.
thanks much
Well, this is the first time I’ve grown cucurbits, so I don’t really know! But they are definitely growing quickly. Mine are indeed in peat pots, so I was planning to just put the whole thing into the ground (although I like to break up the peat pot a bit as I plant it).
On the other hand, some of the veterans at my community garden said that since cucurbits grow so fast, you might as well plant them directly in the ground anyway.
Can’t wait to check out your ‘zine. Thanks for stopping by.
[…] 27, 2009 by Amelia Less than a month ago, the cucurbits were just cotyledons pushing up out of their peat pots. I planted them outside maybe three weeks […]