Grow Your Own Magazine

I have read today that you shouldn't grow melons and cucumbers in the same greenhouse due to the possibility of the cucumbers being cross pollinated with the melons resulting in bitter fruit. Bit late for me as I have both growing already though the flowers are only just starting to open.

As my cucumbers are F1 hybrid and don't need pollinating, can I just remove the flowers, leaving the little cucumber alone? Was going to try it but thought I better ask first in case it would leave the wee cucumber open to disease.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I should have thought your cucumbers would be all right. I presume by F1, you mean that they are all female flowered and self-pollinating, so any melon pollen would be surplus to requirements, and would not do any harm.

I remember before the 'all female' flowered cucumbers any male flowers needed to be taken off the plant, because if the female flowers were pollinated the resulting cucumbers would be bitter.

valmarg

I didn't know you couldn't grow them together, I had them both in my greenhouse last year and had lots of fruit from them with no trouble at all and no bitter fruit. Hope yous are ok too.

Thanks folks, I hadn't thought there would be problems until I was reading 'The Gardener's Year' by Alan Tichmarsh. I have quoted the relevant section on another thread which was about male flowers on F1 cucumber plants. I hoped that if I raised the point on here, people would tell me that they had experienced no problems while growing both in the same greenhouse.

__________________
Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

i was curious about this too - i've got 2 melon plants (not flowering yet) and 2 big ridge cucumber plants in flower in my greenhouse - will take a chance on it and keep them all in the greenhouse
i've got a couple of other ridge cucumbers growing outside as well