Technical essentials of planting towel gourd

Seed selection and sowing towel gourd prefer higher temperature, seedlings grow slowly at low temperature, feasible seedling transplanting or direct seeding, generally accelerate germination before sowing, soak the seeds for 8 hours for 10 hours, take out the seeds, wrap them in a wet cloth, put them in a warm place, and sow them in a warm place after 2-3 days of budding. In the Yangtze River basin, seedlings are raised in cold beds from late March to early April. Direct seeding in the open field raised seedlings from late April to early May. The large-scale cultivation of towel gourd in South China is mainly ridged towel gourd, which can be divided into three sowing periods: spring sowing from February to March, summer sowing from April to May, and autumn sowing from July to early August.

Towel gourd root system is well developed, middle ploughing should not be too deep, generally shallow ploughing in front of the tower for 2 or 3 times, soil cultivation is divided into 4 or 5 times during the growth period, and the soil in the ditch is cultivated at 1 cm to 2 cm each time, so as to promote adventitious roots, maintain soil temperature and increase fertilizer absorption capacity.

When the towel gourd vine is more than 8 to 10 meters long, it must build scaffolding to make it spread and grow. After wide-border cultivation, a flat shed will be built in a group of two beds. The height of the shed is 1.6 to 2 meters; the narrow border planting or interplanting is generally set up with a hedge frame, with a small bamboo pole 2.6 by 3 meters long, one for each hole, and one or two grass ropes are tied horizontally between the two bamboo poles, so that the melon vines grow along the grass rope.

Towel gourd main vine growth is strong, more female flowers, early fruit, in order to promote the growth of main vines, male and female flowers should be removed in time before shelves, tendrils and inverted vines to save nutrient consumption. After the mother vine is on the shelf, she often manages the vine, such as when it is too dense, cut off the thin side vine, tendrils and evenly arrange the vine leaves on the scaffolding to facilitate ventilation and light, while the hedge frame should delete the side vine in time and keep the main vine melon.