Saood: I'm sorry I didn't notice that it was you. I have seen your posts in the container forum and know you have been hard at work learning about what container plants need. If you were able to grow tomatoes in your conditions, you will be able to grow melons and cucumbers. They have similar needs to tomatoes, with maybe a little more demand for even moisture, especially early in their lives. If you have a container that is deep enough (at least a foot) and drains well, I think you could cut back on the perlite and maybe use a heavier mix that holds more moisture. You know that in the American south, many gardeners do not grow things like tomatoes and cucumbers in the summer months because of the heat. If your tomatoes are already showing stress from the heat, this may not be the best time to start melons, which can take three months to mature. Cucumbers grow a little faster, so they might be OK, and you may even have access to varieties that thrive in your climate.

It's really hard to say what might be wrong, based on the info available, Lauren. If I only consider the odds of what the problem might be, I'd have to suggest you might be over-watering, which is easy to do in water-retentive soils. Try withholding water (once) until you see the first signs of wilt. This will give you a better idea of what your watering intervals should be. A couple of other things that come to mind are over/under-fertilizing. Have you fertilized? With What? Are your mean temperatures there consistently above 55* now? Al

It is impossible for me to say what happened to your cukes, but the sudden wilting is indicative of bacterial wilt. It is spread by cucumber beetles which feed on the leaves. One day the plants look fine, the next day they look droopy and the next day they are dead. When you say shallow roots, how shallow are we talking? Also keep in mind that if you pulled the plants out by the stem rather than dumping the container out you may not have removed all the roots. The roots tend to get thinner as they go deeper and they tear easily. Some cukes will climb vertically on a single piece of twine, others won't, it just depends on the variety. In any event I don't believe root damage from tearing in the weather caused the vines to wilt. Stem damage could do it, but root damage is unlikely to cause wilt if the potting medium was moist. Just try again and keep an eye out for cucumber beetles, the bane of curcubit grower's existence. Here is a link to an excellent PDF with pics and control options for them: http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/PDF/cucumberbeetle.pdf

I don't know of any way to speed up the process. The good news is that they grow pretty fast once they get going. You still have time.