This year I planted my cucumber (pickle plants) in an area of my garden where I also planted a few hills of "mixed gourds." My husband is concerned that the gourds are taking over and will affect the crop of pickles. Since the gourd plants rise above some of the pickle vines, he thinks the pickles won't get enough sun. Should I pull / cut back some of the gourd vines, or should the pickles do just fine????? So far they appear to be doing fine, lots of flowers and real tiny fruit. The past two years I have also had a problem with powdery mildew, so the plants died out prematurely. I'm hoping that changing their location in the garden as well as growing them with the gourds might help. I'd appreciate your feedback, as I truly love eating fresh pickles from the garden, as they are so sweet and tender (even more so then regular slicing cucumbers.) Thanks for any advice you can provide
Two things: 1) Cucumbers love sun. Shading them out is likely to reduce the crop. 2) Cucumbers love water (if applied below the leaves, i.e., at ground level). Planting them with another competitor for water is also likely to reduce the crop. This can be worked around, of course, by being diligent with watering. The sun requirements, though - likely not.
I contain my cuccumber bed by putting two 8 foot re-inforcing mesh about 2.5b feet apart. The cuccumbers climb up the four foot high 6 inch mesh with a little training, otherwise they will sprawl all over the garden. Have a look. http://xrl.us/o3uy Durgan.
