Growing Cucumbers In Greenhouses And In The Open Field

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Cucumber is a must-have crop in any garden, along with tomatoes. To get a good harvest of cucumbers, you need to put a little care and painstaking work. It is very important to choose the right several varieties, or even better, several parthenocarpic hybrids, and by using the seedling method of growing or sowing cucumber seeds in open ground, you can form a continuous and long-term conveyor for obtaining a valuable, useful and irreplaceable food product.

Cucumber is successfully used in cosmetology - in creams, lotions and shampoos. The best rejuvenating and refreshing face lotion is considered to be fresh cucumber juice mixed with vodka. For therapeutic purposes, fresh cucumbers are included in the diet of people prone to obesity, as well as for diseases of the kidneys, liver, and gout. After all, they reduce the acidity of gastric juice, contain iodine, enzymes close to insulin.

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The cucumber also contains potassium salts, which helps to remove fluid from the body, regulates the work of the heart. Fresh cucumber relieves knee and joint pain when grated and tied to the knees as a compress. But it is impossible to keep the compress for more than four hours - bubbles form, the cucumber draws in deposits so much.

But the main thing is that not a single Russian feast is complete without fresh, pickled or pickled cucumber. The earliest harvest of this popular crop can be obtained by growing cucumber seedlings in greenhouses, hotbeds, tunnels and other protected ground structures. Seeds are best purchased from trusted large firms. For sowing, it is necessary to select large seeds 2-4 years old, tested for germination. In plants grown from good seeds, the leaves and lashes develop more vigorously, then they bloom and bear fruit abundantly, and are more resistant to diseases.

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Before sowing, the seeds of cucumbers are disinfected using a 1% solution of potassium permanganate, in which the seeds are kept for 20-30 minutes, then washed with water. The seeds can be kept for 24 hours in clean warm water with a temperature of 20 … 30 ° C until they swell, as well as in the following solutions: - sifted wood ash - 1 teaspoon, nitrophoska - 1 teaspoon per 1 liter of water. The seeds are left in solution for 12 hours, after which they are wrapped in a damp cloth for another 24-42 hours at an air temperature of 22 … 23 ° C, then dried; - 10 g of superphosphate, 10 g of potassium nitrate, 20 g of manganese sulfate per 1 liter of water. The seeds are left in solution for 12 hours, after which they are dried. Dried seeds are germinated at a temperature of 20 … 30 ° C, best of all in wet sawdust or sand, or just in a cloth.

Germination is completed when a small root half the length of the seed is formed. The duration of growing cucumber seedlings for a greenhouse is approximately 30 days. When planted in a permanent place, plants should have 5-6 true leaves, 2-3 tendrils, a thick stem, and a healthy root system. Cucumber seedlings are usually grown directly in pots without transplanting. Containers with a well-moistened soil mixture are placed in a box, the bottom of which is lined with foil, and two seeds are sown in each pot to a depth of 1-2 cm. The box with containers is also covered with foil and placed in a warm place with a temperature of 20 … 25 ° C. The film is not removed until the cotyledon leaves open. Usually shoots appear on the 4-5th day.

After their appearance, the box should be immediately placed in the lightest place and the temperature should be reduced to 15 … 16 ° C during the day, and to 14 ° C at night. Less developed plants are removed, leaving one in each pot. After 3-4 days, the temperature during the day is maintained within 20 ° C, at night - about 14 ° C. There is another method of growing cucumber seedlings. The seeds are sown in sawdust soaked in hot water, and in the phase of the first true leaf, the plants are planted in pots or directly into the ground in a permanent place. Seedlings are easily removed from sawdust, the root system is not injured.

It must be remembered that cucumber plants are thermophilic, do not withstand frost and even die at zero temperature. The optimum temperature for their growth and development is 18 … 24 ° C. Low temperatures below + 14 ° C are unfavorable for cucumbers, and prolonged cold and humid weather is simply harmful. In cold, rainy summers, growing cucumbers outdoors without the simplest shelter can lead to failure. Therefore, it is better to install arcs with a height of 70-80 cm above a regular garden bed, which can be covered with plastic wrap if necessary. At the end of the frost, the film can be changed to a covering material.

If the cucumbers are self-pollinated or parthenocarpic, the covering material will have to be lifted only during watering, feeding, forming and collecting fruits. If the cucumbers are bee-pollinated, the covering material must be raised by half from the warm, windless side during daylight hours. Artificial pollination can also be carried out. The use of parthenocarpic hybrids is very effective, since they are capable of producing crops even when the activity of pollinating insects (bumblebees and bees) is extremely low. You can grow cucumbers in the open field in an ordinary garden bed, prepared in advance in a warm, well-lit place.

In autumn, it is sprayed with a solution of copper sulfate (1 tbsp. L. Per 10 l of water) at the rate of 1 l per 1 m² of area. All plant residues are removed from the garden. Before digging, add a glass of dolomite flour or ash, as well as 1 tbsp. a spoonful of superphosphate per 1 m². The garden bed is dug to a depth of 15-18 cm and left until spring. In the spring, 10 days before sowing or planting, if the soil is clay or loamy, add 3 kg of manure, peat, old sawdust to 1 m² of beds and dig it to the depth of a bayonet shovel.

Then the soil is leveled and watered with sodium humate (1 tbsp. L. Liquid sodium humate per 10 l of water), 3-4 l per 1 m². Then cover with a clean film before sowing or planting cucumbers. A week later, the film is opened, along it in the middle, a groove is made 2 cm deep, watered with warm water (50 ° C) and the seeds are sown at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other, covered with soil, lightly tamped, but not watered.

The garden bed is covered with a covering material. It is very important to remember: you cannot sow cucumbers in unheated soil. The seed coat swells slowly, and the contents often rot, besides, the seeds damage the larvae of the sprout fly, especially in the long spring. In open ground without shelter, cucumber seeds should be sown when the soil warms up to 12 … 13 ° C at a depth of 8-10 cm. Such conditions usually develop in late May or early June. The soil can be warmed up earlier by covering the bed with foil, or manure can be added.

But early crops require special attention, they must be protected from return frosts, which are possible until June 10! It is good to use the so-called warm bed. It will not only help protect the root system from freezing, but also significantly increase the yield. A warm bed can be made, for example, from plant debris: mowed grass, fallen leaves, pine needles, wood shavings, sawdust, chopped straw, paper waste, etc.

But in this bed there should be no tops of cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini. It is advisable to collect plant debris in autumn, but also in spring. To set up a warm bed, all the garbage is thoroughly mixed and on a flat, sunny, wind-protected area, a bed is made 50-60 cm high, 70-80 cm wide (arbitrary length). Garbage is poured with hot water and tamped tightly (you can just walk around the garden). Then the bed is disinfected (1 tablespoon of copper sulphate is diluted in 10 liters of boiling water), then the soil mixture is poured with a layer of 12-15 cm, consisting of peat, sod land, manure, sawdust.

Mineral fertilizers are added to the soil mixture at the rate of a glass of crushed charcoal, a glass of ash, 1 tbsp. spoon of superphosphate and 1 teaspoon of urea per 1 m² of the garden. Fertilizers are mixed with the soil mixture and the garden is watered with a hot (60 … 70 ° C) solution of copper sulfate (1 tsp per 10 l of water) or a strong solution of potassium permanganate.

The prepared bed is covered with not used film before sowing seeds or planting seedlings. To grow cucumbers in small areas, vertical trellises are used. Stakes with a height of 0.5-1.2 m are dug in along the length of the row, they are connected from above with slats or wire. At a low height, the trellis loops are thrown over the rail. At a height of more than 1 m, the stems of plants 10-12 cm from the ground are tied up, for this, a free loop of twine is put on the bottom of the stem, the stem is twisted and the other end of the twine is tied to the upper rail or wire. Antennae on the stems are best removed, since they do not cling to their support.

Sunflower and corn planted nearby are often used as supports. To improve the heat and humidity conditions, so-called curtain plants are often used. Maize, sunflower, winter rye or wheat, fodder cabbage, etc. are used as backstage crops. The direction of the rows of plants when arranging the wings is from east to west. The protective effect of the wings affects the distance 4-5 times the height of the plants.

To improve the microclimate from the first days of the life of cucumber plants, the wings are sown with germinated seeds in early spring. Winter crops can be sown in autumn. But no matter how cucumbers are grown, you cannot get a good harvest of this crop without regular watering. They should be watered after 5-6 days (in normal weather), spending 400-450 liters of water per 10 m².

You need to harvest every day, even better - twice a day: in the morning and in the evening. There are a lot of good varieties and hybrids, but of their great variety, our gardeners and summer residents should pay attention to the magnificent parthenocarpic hybrids Svyatoslav F1 and Julian F1. Cucumbers Svyatoslav F1, Julian F1-early ripening parthenocarpic hybrids. Zelentsy are large tuberous, black-spiked, 8-10 cm long, weighing 60-70 g in a traditional "Russian shirt".

Fruits without bitterness, excellent taste when fresh and salty. They are distinguished by high yield and resistance to downy mildew and powdery mildew. Recommended for growing in the open field and under film shelters. These are some of the best salting hybrids, which are an order of magnitude superior in taste to the Dutch hybrids! Good harvests to you!