Forming vines of melons and melons is a complex craft at the intersection of art and science. How long should the whip be? How much fruit should I leave? After which leaf should you pinch? How to form? Sometimes it’s scary to even approach this activity; you give up: grow as you grow. It is not right. The size and quality of the fruit depends on how the lash is formed. Based on the experience of FORUMHOUSE users, we will look at the formation of pumpkin, watermelon and melon.
How to shape a pumpkin?
The first thing you need to know about shaping a pumpkin is that you shouldn’t rush into it. Even if you have “a bud on each lash,” the time has not come to pinch. A pumpkin is formed only when both the main stem and side shoots are decorated with ovaries the size of a tennis ball.
You can plant a pumpkin in one stem, or in three. After each last fruit, there should be four or five leaves on the stem. When forming into one stem, two or three fruits are left on it, and the side shoots are pinched into one or two leaves. When forming a plant into three stems, the main and lateral, two ovaries are left on the central one, and one on the lateral ones (or one fruit on each shoot). Typically, gardeners use all approaches and, through trial and error, choose the method that they will practice in the future.
Tatuniki User FORUMHOUSE
I form a pumpkin, leaving two or three fruits on the main stem and one on the side.
In general, it is an unpretentious culture. It was always planted in the far corners of vegetable gardens or potato fields and was not pampered with watering or fertilizing. And the lashes stretched uncontrollably, as and where they wanted. But usually the pumpkin forms too many ovaries, more than it can ripen. Therefore, if you do not control the process, it will shed some of the ovaries itself.
You can leave more fruits, up to seven per shoot. But it should be remembered that the whip is formed to produce large fruits and accelerate their ripening. Therefore, five to seven fruits on a pumpkin shoot will always be smaller than three, and they will ripen later.
The amount of sun also affects the speed of ripening. Pumpkin, as one of the most light- and heat-loving crops, planted in full sun. And therefore the weather also affects the formation of the whip. If the summer is bad and the fruits set later than usual, the pumpkin is formed, leaving fewer fruits so that they have time to ripen. But basically, of course, the number of fruits per plant depends on your needs and goals.
Fech Evgeniy User FORUMHOUSE
If imprisoned large-fruited variety and you need a large, exhibition fruit, then you need to leave one fruit and pinch it. If you plant a portion variety with medium-sized fruits, then you don’t have to pinch anything at all!
A FORUMHOUSE participant conducted an interesting experience in growing pumpkins Maria1. She grew a pumpkin on a compost heap and pointed the whip at the fence. At first, the increased decorativeness of the fence, entwined with large leaves and yellow gramophone flowers, was simply pleasant. Then, when the little pumpkins appeared, Maria put mesh bags on them, the kind they sell vegetables in in supermarkets, and hung them on a hook on the fence. Supported by the bag, the pumpkin ripened without coming off.
Maria1 User FORUMHOUSE
We grew three pumpkins weighing from seven to twelve kilograms. We liked this method. After all, it doesn’t take up any space, a green fence with flowers and a pumpkin.
How to shape melons
Female flowers and, therefore, shoots on melons are formed only on third-order vines. This means that you need to pinch the main stem in time, otherwise you may not get female flowers at all.
Vodopad User FORUMHOUSE
Many users of our portal form melons, following to the letter the recommendations of a reputable agronomist Nikolai Ivanovich Kurdyumov: as soon as the melon has its fifth leaf, it is pinched just above the third leaf. Soon three side shoots will appear, the bottom one is removed, the remaining two are pinched over the fourth or fifth leaf. Third-order shoots will appear on these lashes. In total, five or six such shoots are left on one plant, on which ovaries the size of a walnut appear. One ovary is left per lash. After two to three weeks, the top of the fruit vines is torn off or cut off, all branches are pinched above the third or fourth leaf and the flowers are picked off.
GARRY81 User FORUMHOUSE
For example, this is how I form mine.
Immediately after planting in the ground, the melon is pinched above the fourth or even third leaf. Thus, the first-order shoot does not grow, and from the second-order shoots the most vigorous and promising ones are chosen, and the rest are plucked out. The shoots are tied with a rope that comes from the trellis frame (at a height of 1.5-2 meters) and as they grow they are twisted around it. The point is that when grown on a trellis, the pumpkin receives more sun than when grown on a spread, and there are more shoots with ovaries on them. Melons are formed on shoots of the third order, and as soon as the ovary grows to size walnut, they are pinched.
Sukharik User FORUMHOUSE
If the side shoots are not pinched above the ovary, the plants may shed female flowers, so the side shoots are pinched to one leaf (short pinching) or two or three leaves are left above the ovary (long pinching).
Just in case, melons are hung on a trellis in a net.
A serious danger to melon is the lack of pollination. Bees are unreliable companions and may not come. It would be a pity if a strong, beautifully flowering bush does not produce a single fruit. We've covered it in detail, so read our recommendations just in case.
How to shape a watermelon
Unlike melon and pumpkin, it is formed in a fundamentally different way.
Yulek34 User FORUMHOUSE
The watermelon is not pinched. He has a different formation.
In most cases, in order to enjoy such delicacies as, people go to the market or supermarket to buy them. However, no one guarantees that the product will not harm your health. It is this fact that makes many people think about starting to grow these crops little by little right at their dacha or local area. How does this differ from planting and caring for berries such as currants, raspberries or Victoria? If you start doing this, you will realize that it is no more difficult than growing tomatoes.
The soil for growing watermelons and melons must be sandy and well heated, at least 26 C and protected from strong winds.
Watermelons, as not many people know, come in completely different tastes, shapes, colors and sizes. What is constant is that taste qualities hand-grown watermelons are always at their best. These berries are sown no later than mid-April, especially in those regions where it is very cold, for example, in the Perm region, Yakutia. About 20 days should pass from germination to planting. They should have two cotyledons and two complete leaves. Watermelon has different varieties, but not all of them are known to residents of regions remote from the center of Russia, especially in the north. For example, there are green watermelons with yellow flesh, on the contrary, yellow watermelons with red flesh, elongated large varieties and even square watermelons bred by the Japanese. So, how to plant, pinch and make them grow tasty and big?
Growing watermelon and melon seedlings
Watermelon seeds are soaked and planted in the ground in mid-April at a temperature of 25-30 C.
Soak the seeds, as already mentioned, around mid-April. Although some varieties are described in such a way that they can be sown at the end of April, this only applies to those regions where spring and summer come quite early. In other regions, there may be a shutdown central heating even before the seeds can be transplanted into open ground. The planting depth for melons should be no more than 1.5 cm, and for watermelons - a little deeper, about 2 cm. Germination occurs only at a constant temperature of at least 25-30 degrees.
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Caring for watermelons and melons
You need to remember that it is advisable to grow seedlings exclusively on the south side, so make a bed in the garden on the sunny side. Take into account the direction of the wind, try to hide weak sprouts from strong gusts. And a month before you plan to harvest, you need to stop watering. This is especially true for those regions where there is increased rainfall and air humidity.
If these rules are not followed, then your watermelon may grow up to 15 kg, but it will not have any taste and the fruits will be too watery.
From the very first day, watermelon from seedlings begins to set in almost 30 days, but a lot depends on the variety. Each fruit is matte at first, and then it stops growing and begins to shine. This means that the watermelon is ripening. When this shine appears and you need to stop watering, and exactly a month later in the beds you can hear the fruits begin to shoot, accordingly, these watermelons can be considered ripe.
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Techniques for growing watermelons
Melon seeds are planted to a depth of 1.5 cm, watermelon - to a depth of 2 cm.
When growing such exotic plants, it is necessary to remember that watermelons are heat-loving plants; without it they will not grow. What should be done? Organize warm beds. To do this, do the following. Dig a hole about half a meter with two shovels. At the bottom of this small pit, lay out plastic bottles, which will not allow the cold into this area. Bury them, after which you can grow melons in this area. They can also be grown in a greenhouse.
Compacted grass is also used to warm the soil. In order for it to warm up, fill it in the upper part of the soil and cover it with some material. While the grass is warming up, prepare the soil. In any case, do not plant watermelons and melons on a manure heap. These conditions are very unpleasant for them. In these cases, it is better to use sandy soil in the top layer of soil.
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Pinching and pinching watermelons and melons
Watermelon ovary occurs approximately 30 days after planting in open ground.
The formation of a watermelon occurs as follows. The main stem is the base, so it cannot be injured. Only the stepchildren are plucked. For large fruit varieties, you need to leave 4, maximum 5 fruits. If they are small, then you can leave even 6 buds on the bush. Therefore, the maximum number of leaves is 7 pieces. Keep the best ones and pinch out the rest. At one plant you will need to leave 1-2 shoots. But it grows normally even when there are 7 or 8 of them on it. Therefore, for the experiment, you can leave a larger number of shoots on one of the bushes. Between the leaf and the main stem there is a stepson, like on tomatoes or cucumbers.
Both watermelons and melons can be grown in greenhouses, but you need to remember that all plants must be pollinated. Therefore, provide bees access to your greenhouse. Many people grow watermelons outdoors, but under cover during cold nights and cool days. Even if it’s warm in the greenhouse, then when spring frosts or summer “matinees” set in, it’s still better, as soon as the fruit appears and begins to grow, to carefully place heat accumulators in the greenhouse (for example, a lot of plastic transparent bottles with water or a simple barrel). Some people use wooden boxes for this purpose, which are placed directly on the fruit.
Watermelons will not rot and will always be warm. The berry size for pollination should be about the size of an apple. If summer and spring are damp, then pollination does not occur. In this case, you will need to pick off the male flower and pollinate female plant. Watermelons require fairly frequent watering, otherwise they stop developing and growing. You can use for this drip irrigation. When the berries begin to grow, carefully tie the stems with any available fastenings, otherwise they may break or dry out under the weight of the fruit.
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How to continue caring for watermelons?
Pollination of watermelons and melons occurs naturally. But in a greenhouse, due to humidity, this may not happen, then they take a male flower and pollinate it by hand.
The most important thing is to pinch them once a week. From the center of the bush there are stems, of which only 2 should be left. No more than 2-4 fruits should be left on one bush. If there is another shoot or several of them appear, then it is better to tear them all off, otherwise the fruits that you leave will not grow enough, since they will not have enough food and time to grow. Don't forget to place a piece of wood under the fruit. You can cover the ground at the root with material or bottles with warm water.
Many who have worked with both watermelons and melons believe that it is much simpler. Melon varieties are as diverse as watermelons. Among them, the most notable are: Honey, Fairy Tale, Iroquois, Caramel. Professionals advise starting with Scythian Gold. Under no circumstances should you grow Kolkhoznitsa melon, as it is a fodder melon that is completely tasteless. Melon can be eaten when it begins to smell.
Agricultural machinery and equipment for melons is the same as for watermelon. The only difference between this melon and melon crop is that they grow only on side shoots. Therefore, as soon as the bush grows to four seedling leaves, be sure to pinch it back. Melon takes about 60 days to grow. If you don't pinch it back and let it grow where it wants, you'll end up with a ton of foliage and no melons in your garden. You can allow the melon bush to grow to the fourth leaf, but only as a last resort. And on the side shoots, if the above conditions are met, you will see a huge number of fruits. But you still need to leave no more than 6 pieces on one bush.
When growing a berry such as watermelon, many beginning gardeners have many questions. After all, it seems so easy to choose a certain variety of watermelon and plant it, but in the process delicious berry Many questions begin to arise. What variety of watermelon is better to buy, how to water and pinch the plant?
In order to receive good harvest need to:
- Decide on the variety of watermelon; they come in early varieties, such as Helen, Trophy and Dolby, which can produce a harvest in mid-July if the seeds are planted under film. And there are such varieties as: Nitsa, Unusual. Such varieties will ripen by mid-August, and the Kholodok watermelon variety will ripen at the end of August.
- Plant the plant correctly. The width between rows must be at least two meters. Before planting, the holes are moistened and up to ten seeds are sown (after germination of the seeds, the strongest ones are left, the rest are removed), the hole is sprinkled with earth and compacted a little. The distance between plants should be at least a meter.
- Do not get carried away with watering; watermelon does not require watering, but to obtain bigger harvest You can water the plant once every two weeks at the rate of three buckets per square meter.
- Correctly form the plant, that is, perform the correct pinching of the plant. This is the most important thing when growing watermelons.
Pinching watermelons is necessary for rapid ripening of the fruit. The pinching procedure also affects the taste of the fruit. The berry becomes sweeter and juicier. The procedure for pinching watermelons also depends on the climate zone in which the watermelons are grown.
For example, in the northern regions, pinching a plant is a mandatory procedure, since in a short time summer period the fruit simply will not have time to grow. Also, such a procedure as pinching should be done for watermelons large varieties.
There are several types of formation of watermelons.
First way.
To form a watermelon, you can leave side shoots. That is, on the main shoot you need to leave only three berries for large varieties of watermelon, for larger ones small varieties You can leave up to six ovaries. Side shoots are left without fruit.
Up to four leaves are left on such side shoots, and then the shoot is pinched. These abandoned shoots will produce additional nutrients fruits that will be located on the main shoot. As the fruits grow and the lower shoots become fuller, they will need to be gradually removed.
Second way.
The formation of a watermelon occurs without side shoots. In this case, all side shoots are removed, and the ovaries are left after a maximum of five leaves.
Particular attention should be paid to the fact that as the watermelon grows, new shoots may appear that will need to be removed. To do this, you need to inspect the plants once a week, otherwise the fruits that were left simply will not grow due to a lack of nutrients.
Third way.
Many gardeners leave side shoots on the main shoot. It is on these side shoots that the berries are grown, and on the main shoots the shoots are removed. When the plant has gained green mass and the first ovaries begin to form, you need to select no more than four fruits for large varieties, and up to six fruits for smaller varieties on the entire plant.
It is advisable to leave one, or in rare cases two, fruits on each lash. The left lashes with the fruit need to be pinched; this is done at a distance of three leaves from the fruit itself. Then you need to remove excess layers with ovaries using scissors from the main plant.
It is advisable to pinch and trim excess lashes on a sunny day; in this case, the cut off lashes will quickly dry out. If you shape the plant in damp and cloudy weather, then rot may form on the cut parts, which will lead to disease of the entire plant.
I was prompted to write this article by a question asked by an elderly woman at one of the agricultural exhibitions in Eurasia. She asked: why she can’t grow watermelons, and how they should be grown in greenhouses in the North-West region.
I explained to her that many authors wrote about watermelons in great detail in the magazine, introducing useful information to the treasury of gardening knowledge. Why couldn't this woman make watermelons? Either the variety is wrong, or they weren’t pollinated, the woman noted. They bloomed, but there was no point. It turned out that she fully understands the theory of growing this huge berry. And she told me in detail about the flowering of watermelon, that female flowers are located at the end of the main vine and in the vines of the first order, and male flowers are smaller and bloom for one day, female flowers are large and bloom for two days. Starting to bloom male flowers, and then, after 10-15 days, the female flowers bloom. The duration from germination to this moment is 75-80 days, and then the cold is close.
Historians say that Tsar Peter, when he was in the Caspian Sea, admired the local watermelons. He wanted to grow them near Moscow. They hired the best workers, brought them from the Volga "watermelon craftsmen", local seeds, even local soil- all to no avail. So it turns out that Astrakhan watermelons grow better in Astrakhan.
Then, at the exhibition last year, I advised her to try growing an early ripening watermelon hybrid Sorento F1 . And everything worked out for her: two watermelons, 7 kg each, grew from the vine. Well matured. They turned out to be very sweet. Perhaps the warm summer contributed to this. This year she came to the exhibition again and thanked her for the advice in choosing a variety. But she didn’t end with questions. And there were many of them. This time she was already interested: how to get more watermelons on the lash? Is this possible in our area, and why do the berries set faster on the side vines? How to properly form plants. Question after question followed.
And I promised to write an article about growing watermelons to answer not only her questions, but also the questions of many other gardeners in our region who want to grow these delicious berries.
Forming watermelons
I’ll say right away about the formation of plants. Here are some options. In a greenhouse, watermelon is grown on a vertical trellis. Twine is tied to each plant. At the same time, they are formed - the two lower lateral shoots (first-order shoots) are removed, since female flowers on them usually appear late. Shoots that did not form up to the 6-7th node female flower, deleted. The main stem is tied to a vertical trellis, its top is regularly twisted along the twine and not pinched. First-order side shoots of the middle and upper tiers are pinched 2-3 leaves above the female flower. Standardization of ovaries accelerates the formation of the first fruits and improves their marketability and taste. The normal load on the plant is 4-5 fruits weighing 0.8-1.2 kg. If the fruits are large, then leaving more than two does not make sense. If there is an abnormally hot summer, then you can leave more.
The fruits are formed on the main stem, middle and upper side shoots, they are placed in special nets, which are suspended from the upper horizontal wire of the trellis or from the greenhouse frame. The distance between plants and rows in the greenhouse is 70 cm. As the vines grow, they are tied to trellises, and new fruits are hung on nets. No more than 2-3 fruits are left on one plant, the remaining ovaries are removed, preventing them from growing to a diameter of more than 5 cm.
To speed up the growth of the fruit, pinch the vine, leaving 5 leaves above the fruit. Weak shoots are removed altogether.
Vladimir Stepanov, Doctor of Biological Sciences
Photo by E. Valentinov
