Fine-tune Your Cucurbit Spacing

Back in the days when Boer pumpkins were planted almost exclusively, I got talking to a Limpopo farmer who had just delivered a load of pumpkins to a depot that distributed produce to mine kitchens.

- Bill Kerr

When I mentioned the importance of spacing, he became thoughtful. Then he told me how, after transplanting fruit trees, he had decided to plant a row of pumpkins between each two rows of trees to maximise use of the prepared land.

In his experience, it was already too late for a good pumpkin yield due to the warmer weather, but anything he could harvest would be a bonus.

To his utter surprise, he harvested a record yield. Now he understood why, he said. For the first time, purely by chance, he had got the spacing right.

As noted last week, spacing is all important. Each variety has its own optimal spacing, and a farmer should make the effort to carry out spacing trials for each variety planted.