Hanging baskets can be a terrific way to grow vegetables, since pest animals often won’t reach food that’s out of their reach.
However, growing cucamelons in hanging baskets may take a little work initially. You must start them correctly if you want cucamelons to work for you.
Today we are coming through the good stuff.
Cucamelons are cute little fruits from Mexico, and they will grow fine in a hanging basket.
You have to start the seeds off somewhere warm (71-75 degrees F) and once it gets ample big enough, put the cucamelon seedling in the hanging basket. If you simply sowed them outside, they aren’t going to grow.
How To Grow Cucamelons In Hanging Baskets
Step 1 – Set Up Your Indoor Space
Unless you live in a warm climate, you will need to germinate your seeds indoors, in a warm location, or purchase a clear propagator, or simply clear out an area or use part of a greenhouse for your seeds to warm up enough to germinate.
Your seeds will probably NOT germinate if you have below 71 degrees. So unless you live in a tropical spring climate, you will need to use either a propagator or a sunny window.
Typically, you will want to start your cucamelons about six weeks before your last frost in your region.
You want to be able to give the seeds enough time to germinate and then grow and establish before transitioning them to outdoors.
Great tip: Before you start, make sure you clear the area; and get a tray for sowing your seeds in to grow, then purchase four to five inches of some nice, soft compost to put your seeds in to grow.
Step 2 – Plant The Seeds
Pick one of your seeds and take some time to examine it closely.
With cucamelons, every seed has a blunt end and a pointed end. When you go to plant your cucamelon seeds, you want to make sure that the blunt end is facing down when you gently place it into the soil.
If the seed itself is not approached correctly during the planting, the plant may fail to grow, or at the very least, will have difficulty figuring out how to right itself as it breaks through the soil.
You will want to dig approximately nice little shallow trenches (not more than half an inch deep) today and place the seeds in those trenches. You will want to space out the seeds (apart) just a little for good growth.
You will soon create seedlings and then transplant them to baskets that will hang, therefore they do not need a much apart, perhaps one a couple of inches apart.
Then you just cover them up and water them lightly.
Before too long (in a couple weeks), you will have some germination and growth and can continue to water lightly.
Step 3 – Harden Off The Plants
As soon as they grow to size and the weather has stabilized and warmed, you should be considering the idea of taking them outside.
But that again is not right now, especially for someone living in the colder regions of the Earth.
Small plants will die quickly to frost or even cold chill above freezing temperatures as they are accustomed to warmth/normativity / biological warmth from under a propagating heat mat or sunny windowsill, for example.
Let me unpack that, let’s talk about:
- Begin placing your seedlings outside during the day and bringing them in at night to allow them to acclimate to cooler temperatures and harden off.
- After the last frost, you may set them outside, but you do not want them outside until daytime temperatures are consistently warm, even at night.
- Once the temperatures are right and the plants have been “hardened off” for about a week, you will be ready to do step 3.
In a warm climate, you may be able to miss a few days of this but you never want to risk an unexpected frost coming in and wiping out your seedlings. Better to be safe than sorry!!
Never a bad idea: hardening them off is just a good best practice to improve the chances of the plant living in the end.
Step 4 – Prepare The Baskets
Fill the hanging baskets with a dark rich compost, with a little drainage materials like perlite.
You are going to want heavy hanging baskets as they are going to grow into big plants, at least ten feet long!
Both ways will work. Your long tendril plants will trail down the basket, or if you give them a trellis, they will climb it.
Either way will work. Although if you use a hanging basket, you will find it easier to just let them trail.
Step 5 – Plant The Seedlings Out
It’s time to plant the baskets up:
- Take care in handling the seedlings and try to untangle any that may be tangled.
- Make several digs into the hanging basket compost to prepare holes for the seedlings.
- You will want to space the seedlings a few inches apart to ensure that they don’t tangle with one another and help with growth of each plant too.
If a number of plants are crammed together in a confined area, you will run into watering and nutrient issues as they compete for water, while also using up nutrients.
Don’t put too many cucuamelons in one basket.
Since the cucuamelon plant produces a lot of fruit to begin with, you should not need too many plants to be successful. Otherwise, you could experience overcrowding, tangling, and difficulty harvesting.
Step 6 – Hang Up The Baskets
Now you are ready to locate a good spot for your baskets!
You’ll want a good sunny spot, because cucamelons love lots of sun.
You will want to hang these baskets at least five feet up, preferably even higher, or the plant may end up trailing on the surface.
You will have to be able to reach them to water them, so it is a bit of balancing act but you should be able to figure a place that works.
If the ends of the tendrils touch the surface, it should not hurt them.
Step 7 – Tend to The Plants
When the side shoots are about sixteen inches long, pinch out the tips.
When your cucamelons are around eight feet tall, pinch out the growing tip of the main stem. Water the plants regularly and feed them tomato food.
They should start to fruit in mid-summer until early autumn, and you can start picking them when they are about the size of a grape, but still feel firm.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Conclusion
Cultivating cucamelons in hanging baskets is an excellent way to make these plants low-maintenance, while looking adorable!
You can bypass the fuss of trellises entirely just hang the plants and let them trail.
