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Growing Cucumbers In A Greenhouse
Growing Cucumbers In A Greenhouse

Video: Growing Cucumbers In A Greenhouse

Video: Growing Cucumbers In A Greenhouse
Video: How To Trellis Greenhouse Cucumbers For More Harvests 2024, March
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"The trough is full of people washed up." Part 1

growing cucumbers
growing cucumbers

The cucumber mystery proverb in the title is not the only one. You can find many more mysteries, sayings about this irreplaceable vegetable culture. It is difficult to imagine a vegetable garden in which there will not be at least one garden allotted for cucumbers.

In my suburban area, I grow this irreplaceable crop in three ways: in a greenhouse - for pickling and canning, in a barrel - the earliest for consumption in fresh and lightly salted forms, in a garden in open ground, cucumbers settle when there is no more left for them in the greenhouse places.

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Greenhouse cucumbers

According to the latest data, the new technologies of Dutch scientists make it possible to obtain harvests of greenhouse cucumbers over 100 kg per square meter. On large greenhouse areas, a certain mode is maintained day and night, smart machines "listen" to plants and immediately fulfill all their requirements. And in our film greenhouses with an area of 10 square meters, where it can be too hot during the day, too cold at night, where the soil is far from ideal, and fertilizing is given according to our concepts, and not according to the true needs of plants, the yield is 10-15 kg per square meter - already fine. But tasty, fragrant and crunchy.

In my cucumber greenhouse, 2 m wide, there is a 60 cm wide passage in the center, the width of the beds on the sides is 70 cm. I plant modern greenhouse varieties, about 2.5-3 plants per square meter, and only in one row - it is more convenient behind them care. It turns out two plants per running meter. If you plant it thicker, as some gardeners do, you get a jungle in which it is as difficult to find a cucumber among the leaves as a porcini mushroom in a dark forest. Therefore, the first rule when landing is not to be greedy. Sow as many plants per square meter as indicated on the seed bag.

About the soil. No matter how poor the soil on your site, in the greenhouse it must be fertile, moisture-consuming and very loose, airy. Otherwise, the cucumbers will not work. If there is manure, then there will be no problems with the soil. But in the absence of manure, you have to carry into the greenhouse for many years everything that will ennoble it a little.

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In the spring - compost, grass, in the fall - fallen leaves. I even collect all kinds of rot, as well as sawdust - I soak them first in a solution of urea or cow dung, and then dig them into the ground. In the summer I store hay, make rollers out of it, and in the spring I put them in the grooves that I dig on the planting beds in the greenhouse. I water it with hot water, cover it with earth, with a layer of 20 cm - let it "burn" and warm the soil. Well, if you manage to get manure and lay at least a small layer between the hay and the ground, then the combustion will go more actively. I monitor the acidity of the soil - it should be within 6-6.5 pH. Otherwise, you will have to water the soil with water and chalk.

Sowing cucumbers. When preparing for sowing, I select only filled seeds. Purchased seeds, if they are not treated with anything and there is no warning inscription on the bag, I pickle in a dark solution of potassium permanganate for 20 minutes, then rinse them. I don't do any more processing. I usually sow dry seeds in holes 5 cm deep and 15-20 cm in diameter, two seeds per hole. I make holes by pressing cans into the ground. I pour warm water into them, and into the resulting mud I press the seeds to a depth of 1.5-2 cm. I immediately cover the holes with a film - for warmth and so that the water does not dry out. Sowing dates fall on May 15-25, depending on the weather. Seedlings appear quickly. I remove the film immediately.

I tried to plant a couple of bushes with 25-day seedlings. However, while the seedlings took root, strong bushes had time to grow from the sown seeds, which practically caught up with the seedlings. Therefore, I did not observe a significant acceleration in obtaining the first cucumbers, but received unnecessary trouble.

Care. In the stage of the second or third true leaf, the weaker plant in the hole, where two seeds were sown, I cut with scissors.

When the seedlings grow a little, root tubercles appear at the very bottom of their stems. Then I gradually fill the holes with fertile soil or humus. I add more earth to the stem to make a cone. Then, when watering, water will not get on it. The plants will soon develop additional roots.

I water, like all my plants, not under the root, but stepping back from the stem by 10-20 cm. And only with heated water. During periods when there are cold nights - in June, August - I water in the morning; in July - in the late afternoon, because on warm nights cucumbers grow not only during the day, but also at night. With each watering, I add a little top dressing to the water: superphosphate or calcium nitrate, Kemiru-kombi or Dorina, alternating them with herbal infusions - about 1/10 of the recommended dose. Once every 10-15 days I give a good feeding with slurry. Three weeks before the start of the salting epic, I completely stop nitrogen fertilizing, otherwise the cucumbers in the jars will be hollow inside or wrinkle. I feed only with ash, scattering a glass of this fertilizer for every square meter of the greenhouse. When the ground under the bushes is compacted, I pour compost or humus on the surface - a layer of 2-3 cm at a time. I do not loosen, so as not to damage the roots.

About the formation of bushes. From the axils of the first four leaves, I remove everything that is going to grow from there. I prefer the simplest to fashionable styles of formation: I pinch all the side shoots without exception over the second sheet. I remove the whiskers, as they constantly cling to the stems, often crumple the leaves, pull the stem away from the twine along which it should grow. The main stem only grows upward, under the roof, to the ridge of the greenhouse.

growing cucumbers
growing cucumbers

About varieties. The passion for new varieties, when I tried almost everything that the breeding firms offered, stopped. There are a lot of new varieties, and all of them are more suitable for large farms, because often their difference from each other, except for a couple of extra pimples, is increased resistance to one or another cucumber disease, which may appear in large greenhouses, but in our garden greenhouses - hardly. I stopped at varieties with the following properties: tasty and fragrant; beautiful; crunch in salted; productive. The most fragrant and tasty were, in my opinion, domestic varieties and hybrids, mainly from Hardwick, for example, hybrid F1 Manor, which has been growing in my greenhouse for many years.

It gives a harvest early and amicably, the greens are very even, even the pimples are beautifully located on them. Delicious in salting. I prefer bee-pollinated varieties and hybrids to parthenocarpics, because they are tastier and healthier. For example, the Lyalyuk variety is very aromatic, tasty, good in salting, gives high yields, bears fruit until late autumn. The disadvantage is very large leaves.

Modern foreign hybrids are very productive, they have a much thinner peel than domestic varieties and hybrids, but the greens are noticeably inferior to ours in taste, they are suitable only for pickling and canning. Therefore, I grow only one of them - the German F1 hybrid Connie. In salting, it acquires the aroma of herbs that are packed in a jar, crunches well, cucumbers are very beautiful, and yields are high. I respect the Dutch hybrid F1 Asterix. It tolerates underwatering well, bears fruit until late autumn.

I tried to grow varieties that do not give large side shoots. However, they have various minor flaws: either the shape of the fruit is not pleasant, then the pimples are of the wrong style, then the lateral lashes still grow large. Since I don't have so many bushes in the greenhouse, and I like to tinker with them, including pinching the side shoots, I decided not to get involved with unfinished new products. It is better to use old, well-proven varieties and hybrids. They do not seek from goodness.

Disease control. Diseases are the trouble of greenhouse cucumbers. From a very young age, spots may suddenly appear on the leaves, witnesses of diseases - anthracnose, ascachytosis and others. Here it is important not to miss the moment when there are still few spots, and immediately dust all the leaves with ash from all sides. You can spray water on the leaves beforehand. Ash helps very well if you catch the onset of the disease. With a large number of spots, severely damaged leaves have to be removed. In this case, chemical treatment is avoided.

Gray rot - slimy stems, leaf stalks. To combat it, in my greenhouse there is always a glass with a pink creamy mass - a mixture of chalk, water and potassium permanganate. I wipe the rot with a bunch of grass or a cut off rough cucumber leaf, grease the wound with "sour cream".

Sometimes the plant suddenly stops growing and withers during the day. This is a consequence of either vascular bacteriosis or root rot - it happens from sudden changes in temperature in the greenhouse, from watering with cold water, and even under the stem, from excessive soil compaction during watering. This usually happens on acidic and poor soils, when the plants are very weak and cannot resist diseases. Here the easiest way out is to dig out the plant along with the soil, put fresh earth in the formed hole. The remaining cucumbers will be easier to live with.

I noticed that there are almost no diseases in a greenhouse if it is ventilated as often as possible, although there is an opinion that this tropical plant requires a tropical atmosphere and does not like drafts. Who loves them? A dangerous draft is when a stream of street air rushes into the sauna atmosphere. This means that there is no need to create this bath atmosphere. Let a dry sunny breeze walk in the greenhouse all day. This will add health to the plants, there will be no rot and fungi at all. The main thing is that every morning, as early as possible, when it is still cool outside, you need to open the greenhouse until it warms up, otherwise, if you open it later, you get a draft effect: the plant has already tuned in to tropical humidity, and suddenly a stream of cold air was given to its leaves … There is something to shrink from.

When airing, you must first open the top of the greenhouse, and then the doors, so that the airing goes from top to bottom. This procedure is especially useful in the morning, when the air is saturated with a kind of "prana" - positive energy, absorbing which, the plants become healthy and cheerful right before our eyes. Together with the owner. The morning sun is the healthiest sun. At this time, the bees are already working in full force. Therefore, all activities in the cucumber greenhouse should be carried out in the earliest morning - at 7-8. Whoever slept lost part of the harvest.

In the morning, every day you need to look through all the plants, how to say hello to them, remove sores, whiskers, spent yellowed and diseased leaves, pinch the side shoots. Lubricate all wounds with "sour cream". The wounds will dry out in a day.

By the evening, when the solar energy begins to decline, the greenhouse that has dried up during the day can be packed up by closing all windows and doors. The heat will last longer. At this time, the most active growth of cucumbers is taking place. They are neither hot nor cold.

In August, when the nights become long and cold, you need to increase your vigilance, carefully inspect the plants for rot. You will have to remove all the lower leaves and used side shoots - it will be easier to ventilate this way. Water less often and only in the morning in sunny weather. And don't forget to mulch the soil.

Pollination. A few days before flowering, I begin to teach insects to visit places near the greenhouse. To do this, I put bouquets of their favorite honey plants in buckets and bottles with water: borage, sweet clover, phacelia. I attract hoverflies with bouquets of blooming cilantro and dill umbrellas. In the afternoon I bring these bouquets to the greenhouse. When cucumber plants bloom, I do a couple of surface watering of the soil with scented water, in which I soak the sweet clover flowers overnight. Insects quickly get used to visiting the greenhouse, finding a way out of it.

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