Cucumber Growing Masterclass: The Secret to Perfect Cucumbers

Cucumbers are one of the most prolific vegetables you can grow and a freshly cut

cucumber

has to be the crispiest and juiciest you can enjoy. So let me share with you what I've learned over the years, including when and how to plant

cucumber

s, the best supports to use, the one thing you can do to ensure exceptional growth, and my

secret

to splitting fruit every time. Like many warm-season crops, there are a wide variety of

cucumbers

to choose from: there are types of pickles with smaller, firmer fruits that hold up well to pickled and sliced ​​

cucumbers

, ideal for salads, lunchbox snacks, and extravagant customers like shaped cucumbers. of lemon. yellow cucumbers.

Most varieties are vines, but there are compact, bushier types,

perfect

for

growing

in containers. There are cucumbers ideal for

growing

in a greenhouse or tunnel, outdoor cucumbers and modern breeding has even produced varieties tolerant of colder summers,

perfect

if you are in a decidedly iffy climate like mine. But here's my first pro tip: choose a variety that makes your life easier and there are two ways to guarantee that. The first is to choose a variety that has at least some resistance to common diseases such as powdery mildew or cucumber mosaic virus. Secondly, opt for a "carpet walk" variety, this word describes fruits that do not need to be fertilized to set fruit, no bees required.

Fruit setting is guaranteed and as no fertilization has occurred, there are no seeds. Many of the commercial cucumbers available do not have seeds, so they will also be parthenocarpic. Most parthenocarpic varieties are also gynoecious, meaning they produce mainly female flowers and the fact that it is the female flowers that swell to produce the fruits can only mean one thing: more fruits to pick! Now, if you see a variety described as exclusively female, it will be gynoecious and almost certainly parthenocarpic as well. Oh my goodness, we're learning some pretty complicated words today! These varieties are hybrids, meaning that two parent varieties have been crossed to produce them, so the seeds may be a little more expensive, but the reliability and yield they bring more than make up for it.

Cucumbers grow surprisingly quickly and, under ideal circumstances, can go from seed to first harvest in two months, so there is no rush to plant them. I usually plant mine about three or four weeks before my last frost date, and if you're not sure when yours will be, you can use Garden Planner to look it up and I'll show you a link below so you can enjoy a trial run. free and find out. Since mine are destined for the greenhouse, I can start earlier, but keep in mind that cucumbers prefer night temperatures above 50°F or 10°C and daytime temperatures much warmer than that.

Therefore, cucumbers are a warm season crop that does not like the cold. Now I have my seeds here and I have been soaking them overnight in warm water. So I just have to drain them every once in a while and then rinse them a little bit, just to get rid of any inhibitors or toxins in the seed coat so they're ready to plant and soaking them like that helps prepare the seeds. to germinate. It gives us a little advantage. Now, once you've soaked and drained them, go ahead and plant them right away because they're already primed and ready.

And for more planting tips like this, check out our planting

masterclass

video, which I'll link to below. Right now, let's take them and plant them in their pots. Now you can use small pots like this one or thick seedling trays like this one, but I prefer to use the pots and some people sow two seeds per pot and then just pull out the weakest seedling to leave one in each pot. However, given the price of seeds, I prefer to just sew a seed into a pot and then if none come out, well, no big deal. So just make a little finger hole or even a small hole with your finger, to a depth of about half an inch or 1 cm and then just insert the seed like that and you're done.

And of course, we will need to label these pots so we don't forget what we have planted. Seedlings sprout much faster when they are warmer. Now the ideal temperature range for cucumbers is around 70 to 80°F, which is 21 to 26°C. It's not that hot here, so what I'm going to do after watering them is take them inside to germinate. Now you can simply place them on a warm sunny windowsill or if you have a heat mat, place them there because the gentle heat from the bottom will really heat up the potting mix in record time and you will get super fast germination. .

I did that with an earlier sowing and after two and a half days they sprouted, so that's it. I will keep my cucumber seedlings on a warm, sunny windowsill and then move them into the greenhouse once it's not too cold. Bring them inside if a really cold night threatens. If the seedlings fill their pots before it is time to plant them, like this one, then you can simply place them in a slightly larger pot and continue doing so until it is safe to plant them outside or wherever you plant them. In warmer climates or as spring moves into summer, you can sow cucumbers directly where they will grow, but planting in pots like this offers some advantages: it allows for an earlier start in a cooler climate like mine and keeps the delicate seedlings safe. . from pests such as slugs and cucumber beetles.

So while it adds an extra step to the entire process, it avoids disappointment. Ideally, we would like to plant our cucumbers outdoors during a period of milder weather and definitely after the risk of frost has passed. But before that, we must harden our plants by acclimating them to outdoor conditions. What I will do is leave my plants outside in a nice sheltered spot like this for longer for about a week. So maybe an hour or two on the first day, a few more hours on the second day and so on until the big day arrives. Mine will stay here, where it's a little warmer.

Now the cucumbers grow long and vigorously, so to support them we need rich, fertile soil, so I'm simply spreading some very, very well rotted manure here. Now this has been there for about a year. So you don't want to put it in as fresh as this, because it's nice and old and it's just as good as good crumbly compost, so it'll be fine for our plants. I just prepare that spread for planting and I'll probably plant in about a week or possibly two, depending on the progress of the spring. And then, to give it an extra push, why not?

Because I already have it, a few pellets of chicken manure. I'm going to spread them out and we'll tickle them too. It has a very distinctive smell, but hey, it's all good. If it smells bad, you know it's probably good for the soil. The best results are obtained when the vining cucumbers are raised from the ground, this reduces the risk of pests and improves air flow around the plants, so there is also less chance of disease and they will grow in sunlight, which It will help fuel everything. of that prolific growth. For vining cucumbers like the ones I'm growing, the easiest way to support the plants is to use a sturdy rope attached at the top to some kind of horizontal wire.

You can also use trellises or A-brackets, but I love how easy rope supports are to set up and manage. When it's time to plant, I soak the root balls for about an hour and then dig the holes, carefully remove each plant from its pot and then the twines can be tied loosely to the base of the stem, or, my preference, coiled underneath of the root ball while planting, to keep it in position. Handle plants with care, as the roots and stems are very delicate and can break easily, I space my plants between about a foot and 18 inches, which is about 12 to 18 inches.

This makes the most efficient use of space. As long as the plants are properly supported, pruned, and watered, you can achieve this fairly short spacing. Cucumbers grow a lot but, as is known, they are full of water. Fruits are about 96% water, so the only thing you can do, the most important tip of all, to encourage vigorous growth in many of these things, is, of course, to water very well. So check the soil frequently. Push a finger down where they are growing, about an inch into the soil and check it. If it's almost dry, go ahead and give everything a really good deep water to keep it off.

When watering, try to avoid splashing water on the lower leaves because that can create wet conditions and potential for disease. Now, once things really grow, it's worth applying some sort of mulch, such as dry grass clippings, hay or straw, bark chips, more compost, anything like that, just to shade the soil and keep the contained moisture. Well-prepared soil will get your cucumbers off to a good start, but as they begin to fruit, it's worth applying a high-potassium liquid fertilizer to encourage more flowers and fruit. Now I simply use something like a liquid tomato food which I use for all my fruiting vegetables including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, eggplant and the like.

You can opt for a granular fertilizer top dressing which can then be forked or tickled. Pruning cucumbers is not complicated and is very similar to vine tomatoes. Now the leaves, fruits, tendrils and side shoots or suckers form from the same intersections along the main stem of the cucumber. Since I grow my cucumbers fairly close together, I'll keep it simple and remove every side shoot or sucker that develops. However, if you space your plants a little further apart, you can choose a different tactic, for example, letting the shoot or shoot on the lower side grow by tying it to its own support and then essentially having a two-headed vine act a bit like two separate floors. floors.

I like to cut off the lower leaves as they get tired and inevitably tattered, as well as the crowded foliage on the tops. This also keeps the leaves off the ground and therefore reduces the risk of disease. Once the vines reach the top of their supports, you can simply pinch the growing point or let the stem droop again and develop side shoots for more fruit. Cucumbers use their tendrils to grab things as they grow upwards, but I like to help the vines fit snugly in their rope supports by carefully weaving them into place and this requires a delicate hand to prevent them from breaking. .

Do this frequently as the vines grow. The first fruits are often oddly shaped, and traditional open-pollinated varieties may struggle early in the season when it is still a little cold and fewer pollinators are available. For this reason, you may decide to remove some of the first flowers to help the plants focus on growth, at least to initially grow. Pick fruits while they are still young, firm and beautiful, lush and green. The best way to harvest fruit is to cut it from the vine with some stem still attached. Just don't pull them off the plant or you'll risk uprooting the entire plant, and if you can, harvest them in the morning while the fruits are still firm and fresh at night.

Check the plants daily and pick promptly so they continue to produce fruit. If you let the fruits get too big or miss one and worse yet, it turns yellow, then it will start to form seeds and the plant will think it has done its job and start to shut down, so you want to avoid that. It's a good reason to be very meticulous when exploring plants to get every last fruit. In the case of cucumbers, the point is that the more you pick, the more you get. In rare cases, fruits can sometimes develop a slightly bitter taste.

Now this is caused by a compound called curcurbitacin that plants produce when they are stressed. This could be due to a lack of water or nutrients, if the temperatures are too low or even too high. It can also occur when the flowers of all female varieties, those gynoecious plants, are occasionally pollinated by a male flower, making them bitter. So if you see male flowers on an all-female variety, simply remove them. Curcurbitacin can also make us burp, so if you have suffered from bitter fruits or burping, opt for the so-called burpless variety. It seems like I'm making this up, but they actually exist.

Also, be sure to water your plants abundantly. If you find the fruits taste a little bitter, simply cut off the end closest to the stem that attaches it to the plant and peel the fruits and you will find most of the bitterness. I should go. Bitter tasting fruitsThey can also attract cucumber beetles, a common problem in North America. Now these beetles feed on plants and in doing so can transmit diseases and bacterial wilts. I'm very lucky to not have to suffer through those beetles here, but if you do, here are some tips for dealing with them.

In addition to growing bitterless varieties to make your plants less obvious, try growing seedlings under cover where you can protect them. Then, keep the plants under insect netting for as long as possible, until the flowers begin to form or need to grow out, at which point the plants will be more robust anyway. Use yellow sticky traps to control beetle populations and remove any you find. Beetles can be picked up and crushed, knocked down and picked up, even vacuumed, but you might think this is a bit cruel. I may not suffer from pesky beetles, but I have my own challenge to contend with and that is powdery mildew.

This is a fungal disease that covers the leaves with white fuzz. This reduces the plant's ability to photosynthesize and stops growth. In addition to selecting blight-resistant varieties, be sure to keep plants very well watered and, of course, encourage good air flow to reduce the chances of contracting that disease. If mold appears, I pick up the most affected leaves and have another trick up my sleeve, which is to make a solution of just one part milk (and it has to be animal milk) to three parts water and then spray this on my plants. This milky solution is sprayed at the first sign of infection and I spray it all over the plants making sure to get right on the top but also on the underside of the leaves to cover all surfaces of the plants.

Milk proteins are thought to act with sunlight to create a hostile environment for fungi. However, it doesn't last, so it's worth repeating this simple treatment every 10 days to protect against another outbreak. If you are growing a mold-resistant variety, keep in mind that no variety is 100% resistant, so you still need to be very observant and act quickly. What does your milk contribute to the patio? Well, mine removes mold. As cucumbers age, they may begin to lose their charm. I find that a single planting is sufficient in my cooler climate, but if you enjoy warmer summers or a longer growing season, the plants may simply run out of steam before the end of the growing season.

The easiest way to solve this problem is to do regular plantings, say once a month, so that older plants can be replaced regularly. Out with the tired Old Guard and in with the vigorous new recruits to revitalize things. Of course, it's easy to get overwhelmed with cucumbers. Once they get going they are relentless, there is nothing stopping them. But there are many ways to enjoy them. Put them in drinks or make refreshing cucumber water on a hot day. Place them on your eyes to cool off and enjoy them in salads. Blend them into smoothies or a gazpacho soup or transform them into very Moorish pickles like these.

And you can watch this video below to find out how. I'll see you next time