Melons, squash, and cucumbers won't cross with each other. So you can grow them near each other with no problems. Squash will cross with squash, melons with melons (depends on variety), and cukes with cukes. However this is only relevant if you are going to save seed. The cross pollination only effects the next year's seeds, not this year's fruits.

Rodney

Agree with the above. Can you point us to where this very wrong info you have been reading is? Perhaps it is out of context or it needs to be corrected.

Dave

Well, I do want to save seeds but I would like to grow them all. It is pretty much all the food my family loves eating. Hmmmm.

Then if you plan to save the seeds from the open-pollinated varieties (no point to saving seeds from hybrids) then you will have to manually prevent the cross-pollination by bagging blooms and doing some hand pollinating. There are FAQs here on how to do both.

The only alternative is to grow only one variety of melon, one variety of cucumber, and one variety of squash at the same time. In other words it only becomes an issue if you grow multiple varieties of each family at the same time.

Dave

I was told and this is what I did do I have 3 Black Beauty Eggplants I was told hat you needed to have 3 to 4 at a time for the cross polliation what other veggies need to be in a group and not ust a single plants??

Does anyone else get fuming mad about how much misinformation is out there about pollination and so on?! I saw a farmer on PBS say that the hybrid varieties in his farm were sterile and didn't pollinate the heirlooms and that heirlooms were plants that would just come true to type! I wrote to him and he still couldn't see where he was wrong!!! I am planning a seed saving class this year.

Anyway vegetables generally can never cross outside of their SPECIES, NOT FAMILY (exceptions are for universities or very experienced seedsmen). So melons and cucumbers cannot cross. They are two different species. Squash are made up of 4 common species and cannot cross between them. So plant away! It never matters the year of growing!!! But if you want to save PURE seed for next year then only one melon variety can be in a 1/4 mile radius to be pure. So obviously when it comes to the cucurbit family your garden would never accommodate trying to plant something 'far enough away'.

debwhite0215- Are you talking about simply having your plants get pollinated or are you trying to prevent cross pollination? These are two very different things.

Cross pollination is when two varieties of the same type of plants pollinate each other. Like if one variety of eggplant pollinated a different variety of eggplant, that would be cross pollination. If you saved the seeds from a cross and planted them you wouldn't know what to expect from the resulting plants.

If you are just talking about making sure your plants get pollinated, most veggies are self pollinating but obviously it's always better to plant more than one. Not only for pollination reasons but also because you just aren't going to get much from only one plant (tomatoes and zucchini being exceptions).

little_minnie- The misinformation in gardening does bug me a bit. There is a ton of very persistent misinformation that surrounds heirloom, open pollinated, hybrid, and GMO seeds. Everybody wants heirloom, non-hybrid, and non-GMO seeds (not that home gardeners can get GMO seeds) because they want to save their own seeds. And I'm always telling people they don't have to stick with just heirlooms, they can save open pollinated seeds as well and that if they don't prevent cross pollination it won't matter if something is non-hybrid because they'll end up with hybrids in the end.
Needless to say, that farmer saying that hybrids are sterile and not able to cross with heirlooms would have frustrated the hell out of me if I saw it. :)

A little off-topic but still somewhat relevant.

Rodney

I was told hat you needed to have 3 to 4 at a time for the cross polliation

Not true. Whoever or whatever told you that doesn't know gardening. And eggplant are self-pollinating anyway.

what other veggies need to be in a group and not ust a single plants??

Just as Rodney said above - none need to be but some will benefit from having more than one planted nearby. Of course there aren't very many vegetables where you would normally plant only one.

Dave

PS: and yes minnie it is quite aggravating. Especially when it is preached like gospel by some disreputable sources.

Either it is misinformation or lack of information. Plants group of nightshade family are self pollinating which includes eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, TOMATILLOES. I have heard a lot of people saying that you need more than one tomatillo plant to get fruits from them. I have experimented it not just once but twice, and am convinced that tomatillo is just like tomato and peppers and eggplants, self pollinating. In both cases I gardened in locations that there was no home gardens nearby, not much bee activities either. Last year my tomatillo plant burst into lanterns in late August while it was blooming since late May. Like the guy in I Love Lucy show used to say " Wa' happen ?".. hehe