Crook Neck Squash not making any progress...

cgantt · April 20, 2011

I love yellow squash. It's my second favorite vegetable, tomatoes being the first. With 2 huge deep freezers to fill I planted 20 crook neck (pic n pic hybrid) and 20 early prolific straight neck plants that I started in my green house. Plants were of good size when I planted them and each had 3-4 true leaves. That was 3 weeks ago and none of them seem to have taken off yet. All are still the same size when planted. The soil is decent and I did mix some black cow in the surrounding soil around the plant. I water them every evening and they get over 8 hours of sun a day.

Suze · April 20, 2011

One thing about your post that caught my attention was the statement "I water them every evening."

That is way too frequent to water, even for cucurbits, which definitely like more irrigation than tomatoes or many other vegetables.

A plant that is too frequently watered has little or no incentive to put out more roots. You could also be washing away nutrients in the root zone by watering every single day.

b54red · April 21, 2011

I also like to mulch my squash fairly heavily. This cuts down on the need to water and seems to slow down the appearance of powdery mildew which always hits my squash once they get large.

cgantt · April 25, 2011

Well 90% of the crookneck and straightneck that I planted have shriveled up to almost nothing. A few began setting blooms before they put on any more leaves and they had not grown a single inch since planting almost 4 weeks ago.

So I have determined that when I potted them up from the small newspaper pots to much larger and longer newspaper pots to combat the leggy stems I made a huge mistake. When planting them I noticed that most of them had not put on a single root from the stem and 99% of the root ball was still at the last 1.5 inches of the pots and very under developed. The scalloped squash and zukes that I started in a 128 cell plug tray and transplanted to 6 packs have fared much better since planting out. They have put on 2-4 inches in just 2 weeks and I expect them to explode in the next week.

The final mistake that sealed the yellow squash's fate was my back going out the week I was planning on planting them out. They were nice and green and looked very healthy. When my back went out and put me out of commission for 2 weeks they either became root bound or something else made them yellow and wilt a little. I believe that the person I had helping me water the greenhouse may have gave them a bit too much water. That combined with me watering them in very well everyday hoping to bring them back to heath was their death notice.

So I picked up a fresh pack of each seed type from the Ferry Morris display at Walmart and am going to start over today. I think I could have some in the ground by May 7th if they sprout and put on true leaves as fast as the scallops did.

b54red · April 30, 2011

This late you will be much better off to just start the seed in the ground. You will be surprised how fast they come up and how fast they grow. Just make sure to plant more than you need and thin them once they look really healthy. I used to grow summer crooknecks and never started them inside. I would either plant a long row with seed every 4 or 5 inches and then thin out the unhealthy looking ones and the ones that had to go to space them properly. If I planted hills I would plant about 8 or 9 seed in a circle about a foot in diameter and then thin to two or three plants per hill.

April 20, 2011	#1
cgantt Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Aiken, SC Posts: 15	Crook Neck Squash not making any progress... I love yellow squash. It's my second favorite vegetable, tomatoes being the first. With 2 huge deep freezers to fill I planted 20 crook neck (pic n pic hybrid) and 20 early prolific straight neck plants that I started in my green house. Plants were of good size when I planted them and each had 3-4 true leaves. That was 3 weeks ago and none of them seem to have taken off yet. All are still the same size when planted. The soil is decent and I did mix some black cow in the surrounding soil around the plant. I water them every evening and they get over 8 hours of sun a day.

April 20, 2011	#2
Suze Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Texas Posts: 3,027	One thing about your post that caught my attention was the statement "I water them every evening." That is way too frequent to water, even for cucurbits, which definitely like more irrigation than tomatoes or many other vegetables. A plant that is too frequently watered has little or no incentive to put out more roots. You could also be washing away nutrients in the root zone by watering every single day.

April 21, 2011	#3
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	I also like to mulch my squash fairly heavily. This cuts down on the need to water and seems to slow down the appearance of powdery mildew which always hits my squash once they get large.

April 25, 2011	#4
cgantt Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Aiken, SC Posts: 15	Well 90% of the crookneck and straightneck that I planted have shriveled up to almost nothing. A few began setting blooms before they put on any more leaves and they had not grown a single inch since planting almost 4 weeks ago. So I have determined that when I potted them up from the small newspaper pots to much larger and longer newspaper pots to combat the leggy stems I made a huge mistake. When planting them I noticed that most of them had not put on a single root from the stem and 99% of the root ball was still at the last 1.5 inches of the pots and very under developed. The scalloped squash and zukes that I started in a 128 cell plug tray and transplanted to 6 packs have fared much better since planting out. They have put on 2-4 inches in just 2 weeks and I expect them to explode in the next week. The final mistake that sealed the yellow squash's fate was my back going out the week I was planning on planting them out. They were nice and green and looked very healthy. When my back went out and put me out of commission for 2 weeks they either became root bound or something else made them yellow and wilt a little. I believe that the person I had helping me water the greenhouse may have gave them a bit too much water. That combined with me watering them in very well everyday hoping to bring them back to heath was their death notice. So I picked up a fresh pack of each seed type from the Ferry Morris display at Walmart and am going to start over today. I think I could have some in the ground by May 7th if they sprout and put on true leaves as fast as the scallops did.

April 30, 2011	#5
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	This late you will be much better off to just start the seed in the ground. You will be surprised how fast they come up and how fast they grow. Just make sure to plant more than you need and thin them once they look really healthy. I used to grow summer crooknecks and never started them inside. I would either plant a long row with seed every 4 or 5 inches and then thin out the unhealthy looking ones and the ones that had to go to space them properly. If I planted hills I would plant about 8 or 9 seed in a circle about a foot in diameter and then thin to two or three plants per hill.