Here is a another cuc pic

Here is my watermelon plant

I'm also in Central Texas.

I think a big question is what your soil is like. It sounds like this plot hasn't been used for gardening before. So a handful of mushroom compost might not do the trick. For example, do you really have any kind of friable loam? I see in your picture cracking in what might well be kind of clayey soil. That kind of soil acts like concrete around the plant roots.

In my experience cucurbits are more sensitive to transplant shock and inferior soil than tomatoes.

It's a little premature to judge on the basis of the original leaves. Those may well have been abused in some way before you even got the plants. What counts is the new ones, and I see some evidence of good new growth.

Welcome to the site! Sounds like you have a great set up for your garden!

I'm not a big veggie grower, but until some more veggie growers see this and chime in I'll suggest, as Dan does, that the leaves had a bit of a shock from going from a green house environment into bright sun. It sounds like you did everything right with bringing in soil and compost and the rain certainly helped too. How are the new leaves looking? From the photo they look better. That should tell the tale in the days to come.

The only other thing to consider is that mushroom compost is usually considered to be alkaline and with our water being alkaline you might want to add some acidifying agent to the soil. But I'll leave the suggestion of what to add to the more experienced vegetable gardeners here.

Wishing you all the best!

Dan,

You are correct, this is a new garden. It was an area on the side of the yard that used to be nice trees and thick grasses. The trees all died during the drought a couple of years ago so I knocked them all down with my bobcat. The existing soil looked quite rich with lots of dark dirt but seemed to be a little on the clay side. I dug it all up and removed all the rocks, then added sandy loam and mushroom compost and mixed it all real well. I would estimate that it is 1/3 native soil, 1/3 sandy loam, and 1/3 mushroom compost. The handfull of mushroom compost you picked up on was what I added to the bottom of the hole before transplanting the cucs.

I am sending off a soil sample to Texas Plant and Soil Lab for a soil test so I know better what I am dealing with. I know it would have been best to do that first but I was afraid I was running out of time for this year so decided to jump right in and see what happens!

Thank you for the welcome, Roselee! I probably won't have much to offer in answering questions for a while but hope you guys will put up with some of my questions!

Welcome to the site Mesquiteman-

Congrats on your new veggie beds. It sounds like you put a lot of thought into set up and orientation. That's usually half the battle.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think your transplants look pretty good for four days out. I don't know about your area, but we just got done with a couple nights in the 40's which is a little cool for the things you have planted. They might not have liked it. But nothing a little time will help with.

A soil test is never a bad idea.

If you have raised beds that have been amended it's pretty hard to overwater. If you dig a hole and it drains then it's not water logging the roots and that's what causes the problems. Your water bill will take a hit though :-)

With transplants I usually water for a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the evening. When I start to see new growth I go more by the moisture I feel when I stick my finger in the dirt. It's kind of hard to describe, but you'll start to get a feel for how to keep it kind of evenly watered.

I hope this helps. I think it's great you're doing this with your daughter.

Lisa

Thank you for the tips, Lisa. It has been cool here so maybe that is part of it. I have a local gardener who is sort of my mentor and I sent here the pics. She echoed the same thing you and the others here said in that they look fine. They just don't look nearly as healthy as my tomatoes that were planted the day before!

Not worried about a water bill since I have a good ol' Edwards aquifer well!

I too think your transplants look pretty darn good for four days out. The second pic of your cukes looks like just a tad of sun scald and/or wind burn or some cool weather fussiness, but they'll be ok as long as the new growth looks as good as it does.

I agree with the other poster, though, about the cracks in your soil. I plant cukes, squash, melons (cucurbits) from seed and then mulch pretty immediately after sprout. For other transplants like maters and peppers I mulch when setting out the transplants. Do you have any bags of leaves or clean straw you can get your hands on? That would be the best mulch you could put down right now while the nights are still tending to get cool. When the ground is warmer, you can use a heavier mulch. If you can't find any leaves or straw, you might try putting down a few sheets of newspaper, covered with a bit of dirt or compost. That'll keep your soil moist for longer to keep those cracks away.

Welcome back to gardening! There are several gardening forums here on GardenWeb ... good advice over there but beware: some of those folks are pretty dang serious!

Robyn,

Thanks for the feedback. I will be putting down some mulch real soon. I have been having to prioritize things a little since i am getting a late start. First was to get the tomatoes and cucs planted. Then was to get the corn in the ground. Now I am working on building the fence to keep all the deer out! Got all the posts in this weekend. As soon as the fence is up, I will mulch and then plant beans, peas, and okra. Then I plan to build tomato cages and some type of trellis for the cucumbers. Lots to do, lots to do!

Everyone's pretty much covered my ideas/thoughts, so I'll add a couple others. I think that the cucumbers and definitely the watermelon are more summer crops here, so they wouldn't like the cooler nights we've had. The same with the okra and the black-eyed-peas.

As for the trellis for the cucumbers, I had good luck with using tomato cages the last time I tried them. Mine are homemade, using something between hardware cloth (the inch-grid stuff) and chicken-wire. Maybe it's for reinforcing concrete? It's a large square grid, cut into lengths and formed into circles, with holes cut out for access. I've taken two of them apart (we just twist the cut ends together to make the circle) and staked them into the garden to support the black-eyed-peas.

Definitely mulch everything, you'll need it!

And, as a transplanted San Antonian, please keep in mind that even though you don't have to pay for the water you're pumping out of the aquifer, everyone has to share that resource. Definitely use what you need, but don't waste it. I miss that water, especially during the heat of the summer with the algae blooms in the lakes up here...you can taste the difference in the water. Treasure what you have!

TX_ag_95,

Thanks for the comments. Just to be clear on the water since my post did sound like I take it for granted...I am VERY conscientious of water usage! I won't let my wife water the yard at all during the summer. Our house is 1,500' from the road so no one but us sees the yard. She would love a nice St. Agustine yard with sprinkler system but I flat out refuse. Don't believe in wasting the water! During the drought a couple of years ago, I lost over 200 live oak trees on my property and it was NOT because of oak wilt. I had the forestry service take a look. It was solely due to the drought. I could have tried watering them but decided to let nature run its course so as to not waste the water. I did, of course, water the trees right around the house to save them but that was it. So, I feel ya on the water issue! Just thought I would clarify this since my post above did seem like I was cavalier about water.

Just wanted to post a quite update...my cucs are looking MUCH better! The original leaves that were on when I planted have pretty much all been replaced with nice, healthy leaves. The plants are starting to run and put out tendrils. I built a trellis for them a few days ago. I imagine it will be too small but it should work for this first year! Thanks again for all the comments and advice.

So neat and organized! I'm glad that they are coming along so nicely for you!

Looking good!!!! Thanks for the follow up photos. Keep them coming so we can continue to drool upon seeing your neat setup ... :-)

Really looks good. You know they have all kinds of books with what things look like with different diseases or different insect damage. What they need is one that has what thing look like the first few days of transplant, or what they look like after a day of 40 mph winds, or what they look like after your male dog marks his territory. You know what I mean? The stuff you have to see a few times before you can tell what's going on. Maybe I'll do one in my second career ;-).

Glad they perked up- Lisa

Lisa,

That would certainly be nice! I would certainly keep me and many others from panicking! I know yesterday I noticed my tomato leaves were curling. I got all worried and took all kinds of pictures. I had just added pecan shell mulch the day before as was worried it was causing problems. I was almost ready to pull it all out, then decided to do a little searching! We have had cold weather and really windy days. Ding, ding, ding...that is most likely the cause!

Did you do a soil test? I'm not far from you and when we checked our soil, we had a ton of potassium, and no nitrogen. None. Not even a drop.

We've also faced some challenges with cucurbits. I've been spraying with a combination of Neem Oil and Copper (about 1/2 tblspn each in a dollar-store hand sprayer) to fight the squash bugs and powdery mildew, respectively. We've mixed it up with a baking soda, garlic, dish soap and onion spray, too, when the stinkbugs and aphids came out.

Also, compost heavily. Cucurbits are hungry, and in new soil, and the poor soil we have, there's no such thing as too much compost. Every iota of kitchen scrap goes to a cucurbit.

We've had mixed results, in West San Antonio. Our pumpkins are HUGE, and the zucchini are prolific, but the watermelons are struggling and I've only had one cucumber, so far.

One thing that I think has helped, for us, as I look at what's succeeded and what hasn't, is companion planting. I've got a whole mess of borage and sunflowers digging into that hard clay. I'll yank leaves off them, and throw them down as mulch sometimes. The plants where I've done that have done better.The successful zucchini are surrounded by radishes and snow peas and borage and sunflowers.

I'd be able to experiment more, but volunteer pumpkins came up from a composted mustard bed after Halloween, and we managed to keep them alive all winter. Now we're getting these massive pumpkin vines that have completely dominated a huge swath of our garden real estate, unplanned. Huge pumpkins, too!

With a mild enough winter and kloaches of a big enough size, I suspect that any long-season cucurbits ought to be planted in the late fall, around here. I've got more pumpkin vine than I know what to do with! If I had tried the same trick with Watermelons, I'd be eating them already!

My ten cents... I know this topic is a little old and you've solved your own problems.

Your raised beds look awesome! I always overplant for high-density practices and things quickly become a jungle.