Hi, I live in MN, zone 4b. I started my squash and cucumber seedling way to early inside, and now I am afraid they are to big for their 3" pots and some of the squash are starting to flower and the leaves are turning yellow. My question is do I try and bring them outdoors and cover them or should I just start new seedlings?
We have a good 4 weeks before the last frost happens typically.

Thanks

This can happen with squash and cucumbers because they germinate fast and grow even faster! Could you post some pics? I'm thinking about those yellow leaves; may or may not be a concern. Do you have them under lights?

Welcome to NGA, @bubk50

If you have the seeds, I would be inclined to start new plants (I haven't started my cukes and squash yet); but if you have the room, you could put your seedlings into larger pots, start putting them outside when the weather is nice enough, and have a headstart on them this year.

for your replies
The plants for the most part look healthy. They are under grow lights. I am just afraid they are going to be root bound, if they aren't already, before I can get them outside. Unfortunately I don't have enough room to transplant all of them. I am posting a couple images, sorry lighting isn't all that great. But I do appreciate your thoughts!

I think that the yellowing leaves are normal. And the plants look very good! Can you possibly transplant to some larger pots and keep them inside until it's warm enough to plant outside? You could start over, but they look so healthy I would try to keep these going and growing.

If you have larger, a lot larger pots, move them to larger pots.
I do this when I have bought plants your size but will be moving them to a larger garden, but have to store them till I do.

Now I have a lot of large to huge pots to do this with, from old flowers and bushes, that I fill with a combination of potting soil and usually bagged garden soil.

Thanks for the response. I think I will try to keep these going as well as plant some new ones, if nothing else I can give the new plants away, if I can't find room in my garden for all of them, if these do survive until I can plant them outside.

Ordered some 6" pots to repot, hopefully that will work until, I can get them outside, going from 4" to 6" pots, may also start some new plants also, if I don't need them, I will give them away.

Good plan!

@bubk50
I, too, have started plants indoors and have run into that same problem! I would agree with what the other folks have said. Currently, I start my seeds in 5" peat pots from Jiffy.(the peat is sustainability harvested)
For plants that I started in 3" pots that have become root bound, I pot the entire 3" peat pot into the larger 5" peat pot. This has worked out for me for the last couple years. Doing this prevents the roots from being disturbed as you can still just put the whole 5" pot in the ground.
Good luck!

The biggest problem is running out of room where the light is good enough. Those don't look too crowded, so you should be able to squeeze in bigger pots, with more compost in the soil. Cut off those yellow leaves, give the stems adequate support when they begin to sprawl - don't let theme be crushed on the rim of the pot.
They should be fine - and you have substantially extended the growing season, which I assume is a major issue in your zone.

Everybody on the bottom shelf got an upgraded home tonight!

Everybody looks happy!

Glad to see that you've been able to salvage your cukes and summer squash!

However, these are both fast growers and showers, and are best started right out in the garden. For most cucumber and summer squash varieties, you're looking at 50-70 days for production, which is well within the range of a "summer" season, even in the coolest contiguous US climes. If you want to start them indoors to get a "jump" on a short summer (I don't recommend this since they don't take to transplanting well), you shouldn't start them more than 2 weeks before your typical last frost, use peat pots, and plant them out as soon as all risk of frost has passed. I know I'm a lot warmer than you down here in DC, but I can actually do two full rounds of both cucumbers and summer squash (plants grow, produce, die out, and are replaced) from seed in the garden, no starting indoors, so you can absolutely get a good crop just plopping the seeds in the garden once all risk of frost has passed!

I have to disagree - although direct seeding does usually work out okay for the cukes and squash, there is nothing wrong with starting them early and transplanting them into the garden, and with cukes and summer squash you get fruit earlier by doing so. I start mine about 4 weeks before I want to plant them out, using plastic pots; I really dislike peat pots because they seem to want to trap the roots inside, unless you kind of tear the pot open at the time of planting, and you need to be careful not to leave the top edge of the peat pot exposed or it will wick moisture away from the plant roots, and for me, at least, it's easier to just pop the root ball out of a pot and plant it that way. The plants should, of course, be hardened off before putting them out - or you can plant them and then cover with floating row cover for protection from the sun and wind for a while (I actually think that's a good idea even if the plants have been hardened off).

When I've started them outside, even in little slits in a covering sheet, I've always had nasty surprises: damping off, insect attack or late frost, and had to start over, very late, which means I lose them, in their bearing prime, to early frost in September.
So I start them indoors now, and transplanting hasn't been a problem. I use peat plugs, not pots - cheaper and neater. I put those in punctured pudding cups in the hatching shelf,

- until it's time to transfer to a pot of earth, with minimal disturbance to the roots. Most of them are in the nursery tent now, thriving.


(That was taken a month ago, before the tomatoes outgrew it. )

I'm not a huge fan of peat pots.

Vera, what a great way to re-use those pudding cups! (If you haven't already, you should post that in the "Garden Ideas" thread)

I've started my squash and cucumbers inside and outside with mixed results as I am sure everyone here has, but last year I started them inside and we could not keep up with all the zucchini and summer squash and had fair results with cucumbers. The winter squash (Butternut and Mammoth Acorn) did not do so well, but I think that was do to the places I transplanted them to, not the transplant process itself. This year I have some new raised beds and I put in a couple cattle panel arches for them to grow on. It's all a grand experiment!

Kent, the arched cattle panels are fabulous! I have one on my raised bed. Tomatoes go in that bed.