How to Plant Bitter Melon Seeds? A Detailed Guide to Sowing Bitter Gourd
Bitter gourd, commonly known as bitter melon, is a vegetable that is often eaten, so how do you plant bitter gourd seeds?
1. Growth Habits of Bitter Gourd
Bitter gourd (bitter melon) is a plant of the Cucurbitaceae family and the Momordica genus, with a bitter taste, mainly distributed in tropical regions, subtropical regions, temperate regions, etc. It is native to the East Indies, and is now cultivated throughout China.
Bitter gourd originated in the tropics and requires relatively high temperatures. It tolerates heat but not cold, but through long-term cultivation and selection, it has strong adaptability and can adapt to 10-35°C.
Bitter gourd likes moisture but fears waterlogging. During the growth period, it requires 70-80% relative air humidity and relative soil humidity.
Bitter gourd is a short-day crop and likes light but does not tolerate shade. When bitter gourd is sown in spring, it often encounters low temperatures and rainy weather, with insufficient light, causing seedlings to grow excessively, leaves to turn yellow, and stems and vines to become thin and weak. The flowering and fruiting period requires relatively strong light.
2. How to Plant Bitter Gourd Seeds
Place the seeds in hot water at about 55°C for heat treatment. After the temperature drops to 30°C, soak for 12 hours. Then crack open a small slit in the seeds, soak for about another 8 hours, and then remove them to promote germination. After that, raise the seedlings in a greenhouse, and once seedling raising is complete, they can be planted out.
For seedling raising, take field soil that has never been planted with cucurbits, peat, vermiculite, and dried human manure and mix them at 1:1:1:0.5. Add 1000 grams of diammonium phosphate per cubic meter, sift and mix evenly to prepare nutrient soil.
The day before sowing, put the nutrient soil into 10 cm × 10 cm nutrient pots (or a seedling bed) and water thoroughly. The next day, spray the nutrient soil with water again, scatter a thin layer of sifted fine soil, and then sow.
Cover the seeds with a small mound of soil about 1.5 cm thick. Then scatter another layer of fine soil evenly. In the Beijing area, sowing is generally done in late March to early April, and the seedling age is 30-35 days. After the last frost in early May, plant out in the open field.