How to Prune Cucurbits

Hopefully most of you know that I rely on pruning tomatoes as a means of both preventing disease and managing the chaos that inevitably ensues come August.

Well it’s possible some of you don’t know that similar pruning strategies work just as well for the Cucurbit family. Think cukes, melons, and squash of all types.

In this video I show how I prune my cucumbers, winter squash, and summer squash. I discuss pruning for melons too, though it is not needed in our garden at this time so wasn’t demonstrated.

The bottom line is this: cucurbits send out new shoots/leaders all season long. In the case of things like cucumbers, it really does turn into not only a prickly mess that’s rather unmotivating to harvest, it can propel the spread of disease too due to the dense leaf area, especially come august as the morning dew returns and mornings are cooler, that water being a key vector for the spreading of fungal spores.

So if this isn’t a practice you’ve considered, I hope this gives you some ideas to tame and maintain a healthy cucurbit patch for the remainder of the summer as well as in future years. I’ll be sure to discuss this more regularly next summer too, as it’s something I do starting in early July.

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