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  • From: "Dalew Farms" <dalew AT phonenet.ca>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Starting Squash
  • Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:29:13 -0400

It seems a bit funny to me to be thinking about starting squash transplants allready when we just got about a foot of snow yesterday!  We needed the moisture though so I still appreciated it...and it will likely be mostly gone by the end of the day today!
 
Here is what works and doesn't seem to work for me:
 
I haven't had good luck transplanting pumpkins, which is contrary to someone else's experience on this thread.  For me, when I transplanted pumpkins, onto black plastic mulch the transplanted ones matured 10 days to 2 weeks later than direct seeded ones!  I've also found that spaghetti squash did not do as well when transplanted as direct seeded.
 
For all of our other winter squash I grow them from transplants and put them into black plastic mulch.  I found a big positive difference, especially on butternut squash for us both on yield and earliness.  I also do most of my zucchinni and cucumbers from transplants onto plasitc, especially my first plantings of the season.  I prefer growing from transplants even if I'm not putting them into plastic mulch because I feel it saves us one pass of weeding, that being the most hand labour intensive pass when the direct seeded plants would be small, more fragile, and more sensitive to weed competition. 
 
As others have mentioned allready, timing seems to be pretty important when transplanting squash.    (I transplant more or less as soon as the plants pull nicely out of the trays...and we use 50's.)  Another reason I prefer putting these onto plastic mulch is because I feel it gives me a little more flexibility to try to battle with, or work with the weather!  If the forecast is for potentially tricky wet weather just when I should be expecting to transplant my squash I will lay the plastic mulch down ahead of time.  That way, if the rain does come, the soil under the mulch is still usually fit to plant into and we can get onto the field much more quickly after a rain than if we had to wait for the soil to dry enough to work it!
 
Dave
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dalew Farms
Web: www.dalewfarms.ca
E-mail: dalew AT phonenet.ca
Phone: (705)594-1823
Fax: (705)594-1834
10781 Hwy 64, Lavigne Ont
P0H 1R0
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 8:10 AM
Subject: [Market-farming] Starting Squash

I started starting summer and winter squash in large peat pots several years ago. It seemed to be the only way I could have reasonable transplant success.

I've seem to be hearing that other people have success transplanting squash started in 50's plastic trays.

Boy, would that same me a lot of time, potting soil and dollars!

Anyone have luck doing squash transplants from 'small' cell plastic trays? And cucumbers, too?

Thanks

-Allan in WV


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