Planting cucumbers in open ground: how to sow seeds correctly, to what depth

When to plant cucumber seeds in open ground

Sowing is carried out after a comfortable temperature has been established, so that the young shoots of cucumbers adapt to the surrounding conditions and begin to actively develop. Planting holes are dug on the prepared soil and several cucumber seeds are placed in them.

As a rule, the planting period occurs at the end of spring - beginning of summer, depending on the specific variety of vegetables and the region of growth.

According to the lunar calendar

The presence of the Moon in a certain phase affects the growth of vegetable crops. The lunar calendar indicates favorable and unfavorable periods for planting. Compliance with the calendar's instructions allows you to grow cucumbers correctly and reduce the likelihood of external negative influences.

Depending on region and climate

The surrounding climatic and weather conditions directly affect the timing of sowing . Since cucumber is a heat-loving vegetable, in regions with a hot climate it is possible to plant seeds at a later stage. In areas with few warm days, cucumbers are planted early.

It is important to consider that in certain regions, cultivation is allowed exclusively in a greenhouse or under a covering film.

Depending on the variety

All varieties of cucumbers are divided into several categories, for each of which different sowing dates are recommended. In particular:

early ripening varieties of cucumbers can be planted in early June;
mid-season cucumbers are planted in April-May;
It is better to plant late-ripening varieties immediately after the risk of return frosts has disappeared in order to have time to harvest in the warm season.

Time for sowing cucumbers for seedlings

It is necessary to sow cucumber seeds for seedlings by first deciding when to transplant the seedlings into open ground. Dates depend on the weather outside:

If the summer resident lives in the middle zone, the seedlings are transferred to the garden bed at the end of May or in the first days of June.
If the gardener lives in the south of the country, sowing may be early, in early May.

It’s better to track the average temperature of May days in past years. If the temperature outside the window does not fall below plus 5 degrees, then it is already possible to plant seeds for seedlings.

Based on the data of the Lunar calendar, in 2022 you need to sow vegetable seeds for seedlings for subsequent cultivation in a garden bed or in a greenhouse:

In April - 10, from 18 to 21, from 23 to 28.
May - seedlings will show better germination when sown for seedlings on the 4th, 5th, 9th, 13th, 14th, 16-25th, 31st.
June – 6, 10-13, 15-17.

You should not be negligent about the data of the Lunar calendar. Sowing seeds for seedlings, started on an unfavorable date, is fraught with frail seedlings and a small harvest with poor taste characteristics of cucumbers.

Scheme and methods of planting cucumbers in open ground

You can plant cucumbers in open soil according to various schemes. As a rule, when grown on a trellis, the lashes are fixed with 2-3 wire clamps. The distance between the rows is 70-90 cm, the seeding depth is 3-5 cm.

When planting cucumber seeds in the beds, you can follow several schemes. The most common options are the following:

One-liner. The seeds are planted in one row with an interval of 15-20 cm. The distance between the rows should be at least 1 m.
Two-line (tape). Each line is made of two rows, placed parallel to each other at a distance of 30-50 cm. The free space between the lines varies between 80-150 cm.
Square-nested. Planting holes are dug at a distance of 65-70. The diameter and depth of the holes is no more than 10 cm. The bottom of the holes is compacted, several seeds are planted in order to retain the most developed specimens in the future.

Observing planting patterns, distances between rows and individual plantings is necessary for the free development of roots and above-ground parts of plants. In addition, the spatial isolation of the bushes simplifies the process of care and harvesting.

Seed preparation

To improve seed germination and increase resistance to adverse effects, pre-treatment is carried out. First, the best seeds are selected, discarding damaged, deformed and rotten specimens. Large seeds with a smooth surface and uniform shade are suitable for planting.

The selected seed material is subjected to disinfection. To do this, prepare a weakly concentrated solution of potassium permanganate and keep the seeds in it for 20-30 minutes. Then the seeds are washed in warm water.

When growing cucumbers on a large scale, it is more convenient to perform the disinfection procedure by heating. To do this, the seeds are heated for 3 days at a temperature of 40 degrees on radiators or in an oven. Warming up creates stressful conditions for the seeds, so it is important not to exceed the recommended temperature.

How to choose a good variety of cucumbers

Plant several varieties of cucumbers at once - 3-4, or better yet 5-6. After all, it is difficult to predict what the conditions will be this year, so varietal diversity will increase your chances of obtaining more stable harvests. In addition, different varieties in different years, depending on weather conditions, have their own advantages, since some are better adapted to moisture deficiency, others are more cold-resistant, and others are resistant to certain diseases.

If you plant only one or 2 varieties, then it is quite difficult to guarantee a stable harvest.

The following detailed review articles about the most popular and best varieties of cucumbers :

Choosing a location and preparing the soil and beds

Cucumbers should be planted in areas that are well lit throughout the day. When grown in the southern regions, light shade is allowed for several hours a day.

Structural soils with a high content of organic components are suitable for vegetable crops.

It is best to plant cucumbers on sandy loam, chernozem, loamy or floodplain soil. It is not recommended to grow vegetables in soil with high groundwater and large amounts of stagnant moisture.

If the soil on the site has a high acidity level, it must be limed. Deoxidation is carried out by adding dolomite flour, crushed lime or tuff. The procedure is performed in the fall, simultaneously with digging.

With the onset of spring, the dug up areas are loosened, saturated with fertilizers and cleared of weeds. Before sowing cucumbers, you must constantly monitor the condition of the soil and maintain it in good condition.

Regular beds

Growing cucumbers in open beds is more difficult than in a greenhouse, but this method has its advantages. One of them is the variability of creating beds to obtain a large harvest and save free space.

To make ordinary beds, you need to dig a hole of about 50 cm. The optimal size of the beds is 3 m in length and 1.5 m in width. To mark the boundaries and maintain the shape of the beds, you can build a wooden box around the perimeter.

Raised beds

It is recommended to plant cucumbers on ridge beds when the groundwater level is high. This type of beds promotes good heating and aeration of the earth, improves the outflow of excess moisture. The presence of ridges increases soil fertility due to the soil obtained from paths and furrows.

To make ridge beds, you need to dig up the soil and cut ridges with a bayonet shovel about 60 cm wide and a slope of 45-50 degrees. The height of the ridges is about 20 cm. Since the edges of the ridges can dry out greatly in dry climates, on light soil it is better to make the slopes gentle. Furrows and rows are placed longitudinally to the direction of the ridges.

Warm beds

There are several options for constructing warm beds. To make a sunken bed, you need to remove the turf at a suitable place and dig a trench into which organic raw materials will be added. This type of warm bed is located slightly above the ground level or is located flush, which eliminates blowing.

Another option is a raised bed with insulation, which is suitable for areas prone to spring flooding. After removing the top layer of turf, you need to mount the fence and fill the resulting box with earth.

Growing cucumber seedlings

Since in many modern varieties and hybrids the first cucumbers ripen within 33–38 days after germination, the need for growing seedlings is often far-fetched. But if you want to crunch on your own produce as early as possible, our summer resident will definitely prepare at least a few bushes of seedlings.

Unlike, for example, cabbage seedlings, which require cool rooms to grow, cucumber thrives at the same temperature as a person, so seedlings can be prepared at home. But if there is a greenhouse or greenhouse nearby, to which there is daily access, gardeners prefer to grow seedlings in them.

Let's assume that we live far from the dacha, we visit it only on weekends, and therefore we are going to grow a dozen bushes in a city apartment. It is necessary to select the most illuminated window sill for this.

Preparing seeds for sowing

Fortunately, cucumber seeds do not need to be purchased annually: they remain viable for 7-8 years. Moreover, fresh seeds are somewhat worse than those that have lain for two or three years: they have more “barren flowers”. Seeds are optimal at the age of 2-4 years. True, everything may not be the same with modern hybrids, but this is a rather complicated story, as is the story of where several hundred varieties and hybrids suddenly appeared on the shelves. Are they really that different from each other?

Therefore, current summer residents are divided into two groups. Some believe that hybrids (F1) are many times better and plant only them, annually trying out all sorts of new products. Others grow old proven varieties from year to year and store their seeds from them, always selecting for this purpose tetrahedral rather than triangular seeds (yes, if you look closely, ripe cucumbers are not entirely cylindrical). It is only clear that most hybrid seeds are sold ready for sowing, but with your own you need to tinker a little first.

The entire list of seed preparation stages looks like this (but not all of them are required):

Calibration This can be done manually: the cucumber seeds are quite large, and the smallest ones can be easily identified with your fingers. It’s even easier to dip the seeds in a solution of table salt (half a tablespoon per glass of water), shake and wait 3-5 minutes. The weakest ones will emerge; they should not be sown.

Cucumber seeds are large, you can feel each seed individually

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Warming up. If you have just purchased, fresh seeds on hand (or their origin is unknown), before sowing you should hold them near a heating radiator for a couple of days, which reduces the proportion of male flowers that bear no fruit.
Disinfection. For seeds purchased from reliable companies in a specialized store, this operation is optional. You need to keep your own seeds or those from your neighbors for 15-20 minutes in a strong solution of potassium permanganate. After this operation, you should rinse the seeds well with clean water.

To disinfect seeds, a strong solution of potassium permanganate, almost 1%, is required.

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Soaking in solutions of fertilizers or growth stimulants. This is not a mandatory procedure, but some amateurs use various drugs for this. The most natural thing is ash infusion or agave juice, diluted 5 times with water.

Epin and Zircon are among the most convenient stimulants to use.

Swelling in water. Even those seeds that are not treated in any way, many gardeners try to at least soak them until they swell before sowing. The seeds are kept in warm water for a day (from 20 to 30 ° C), after which they are slightly dried so that they fall easily when sowing. This measure can speed up the emergence of seedlings by only a day, so it is also very controversial due to necessity.
Hardening. But this is reasonable. Although many scientists are not unanimous on this issue, believing that hardening of seeds has almost nothing to do with hardening the plants themselves. It makes no sense to harden the seeds for planting in a greenhouse, but this operation is popular for open ground. Hardening in the case of cucumber seeds is carried out by keeping the soaked seeds in a wet cloth in a refrigerator for 24 hours.
Germination. This is most often done in wet sawdust until the primary root appears - half the length of the seed. True, sprouted seeds are more difficult to sow, but a couple of days are gained.

Sometimes things even get to the point where leaves appear, but planting such seeds will be very difficult

Is it possible not to do anything from the above list? It’s possible, the seeds will sprout dry, just a little later. Therefore, you need to select only those steps that seem necessary in each specific situation.

Sowing cucumber seeds

Sowing cucumber seeds in cups with soil mixture poured into them is very easy.

Place 1-2 seeds on the surface of the soil watered with water (no matter how many: after all, some seeds are now sold even individually!). Expensive seeds are sown one at a time: most likely they have good germination
Cover them with a layer of soil about 1.5 cm thick.
Spray the surface with water from a spray bottle. A gardener should always have a simple spray bottle on his farm.
Place the cups in any convenient tray, cover with glass or film and transfer to a warm place (optimally at a temperature of 25-28 ° C).

Glass will create a greenhouse effect and prevent the soil from drying out

The emergence of cucumber seedlings can be expected in 4-8 days, depending on the variety and conditions. A few days after this, the worst plants should be carefully removed, or better yet, trimmed with scissors.

Caring for cucumber seedlings

Before emergence, care must be taken to ensure that the soil does not dry out. Opening the glass slightly, lightly ventilate the crops and, if necessary, spray them with a spray bottle. The best place for cucumber seedlings is a well-lit, warm windowsill. As soon as the shoots appear, the glass must be removed, and the temperature must be reduced to 18 °C, several degrees lower at night, and this must be maintained for five days. This is the most difficult thing: by this time, as a rule, it is already warm, but if such conditions are not found, the seedlings will stretch out and be very weak.

Subsequently, the optimal temperature is about 24 °C during the day and 18 °C at night, plus more light. If there is not enough sun, mandatory lighting with fluorescent lamps or diode lamps. Cucumbers on the windowsill need space; the bushes should not touch each other, so the cups need to be moved apart from time to time. The rest of caring for seedlings is the same as for any vegetable plants.

When the window sills run out, the tables are forced to grow seedlings, but here you can’t do without lighting

Watering seedlings after emergence

Water cucumber seedlings only with warm water (about 25 °C). In this case, the soil should always be slightly moist: any stagnation of excess water, especially in the case of insufficient heat, will certainly lead to rotting of the root system. The frequency of watering depends on the nature of the soil and temperature conditions, but this should not be done daily.

After watering, experienced gardeners always add dry, clean sand closer to the roots. You don’t need a lot of it, just a millimeter layer is enough: the sand acts as mulch, and at the same time prevents rotting of the lower part of the stem.

Top dressing

Often, when growing cucumber seedlings, they do without feeding at all. If the soil mixture was prepared correctly, the cucumbers will have enough nutrients until they are planted in the ground. Feeding is only needed if the seedlings have stopped growing, the leaves have acquired an unnatural color, etc. Of course, this may also be due to diseases (mainly from disturbances in water and temperature conditions), but, most likely, nutrition is used up.

In most cases, it is enough to pour the ash infusion over the cucumbers. If there is no ash, use any complete mineral fertilizer (preferably with a trace of boron). It is safer to use foliar feeding. To do this, the leaves of the seedlings are sprayed with a weak solution of any complex fertilizer (as written on the package). The concentration of the solution must be carefully monitored so as not to burn the leaves. After any feeding, water the seedlings well, not forgetting to add a little sand after that.

In a city apartment there is nowhere to get ash, so it’s worth stocking up on it in the fall after the next barbecue

Is it possible to pick cucumber seedlings?

Picking cucumber seedlings in the classic version (with pinching the central root) is strictly unacceptable. But sometimes it is still necessary to transplant the seedlings into another container. This can be done no earlier than when the first true leaf appears. This need may arise in the following cases:

too small container taken during sowing;
highly elongated seedlings;
overgrown seedlings due to incorrectly calculated seed sowing time;
seedling diseases.

In the first three cases, transplantation is carried out using the transfer method: after thoroughly watering the seedlings, the soil is allowed to dry out a little so that the soil lump “grabs”, and the entire contents of the cup are transferred into a larger pot, adding soil. Since the root system is almost not affected, the probability of success is high; sometimes cucumbers don’t even stop growing. With such a transplant, you can also deepen the seedlings somewhat (especially if they have stretched out), placing them in the ground almost up to the cotyledon leaves. Of course, after transplanting it should be watered well and moved to semi-darkness for a couple of days.

In the event of a disease, most likely the soil will also be infected, so the plants will have to be replanted with almost no earthen clod, and the likelihood that everything will go well is low. But gardeners often try to save seedlings in this way. After watering, it is carefully removed from the cup with a minimum amount of soil, but trying to preserve the roots as much as possible. Such seedlings require more careful care. For the first time, it is placed not only in partial shade, but the temperature is also raised slightly. If everything went well, after a week the seedlings return to normal conditions.

Planting cucumber seedlings in open ground

Cucumber seedlings are kept at home for no more than a month. Of this time, the first few days she is kept at a low temperature, then in comfortable conditions, and in the last week they begin to accustom her to living conditions in the open ground. To do this, the seedlings are first taken out onto the balcony for 15-20 minutes, then the walking time is gradually increased. But the temperature should not be too low; 10-12 °C during the day is already stressful. By the time of planting in the garden, the seedlings should be on the balcony for up to half of the daytime.

Good cucumber seedlings, ready for planting in the garden, should have at least three large dark green leaves and a powerful but short stem. It is very good if there are already buds on it (which, of course, does not happen with three leaves), as well as tendrils. But it is undesirable for flowers to open at home.

Before transplanting into the ground, seedlings are well watered. Various planting schemes are offered, it also depends on the variety, but plantings should not be thickened. Most often, cucumbers are planted in a row, leaving a distance of 40-50 cm between rows, and 25-30 cm between plants in a row. Denser planting does not always lead to an increase in yield; it happens the other way around. Naturally, the garden bed should be ready long before planting: it should be well filled with fertilizers, primarily organic ones.

The time for planting cucumber seedlings in open ground is determined not so much by specific dates as by weather conditions, and seedlings are not transplanted into a bed without shelter in the middle zone no earlier than the beginning of summer. They try to plan the landing on a cloudy day. The transplant process is simple:

Before planting, loosen the bed again and level the soil with a rake. Before the last leveling, the bed can be sprinkled with ash again.
In the places designated according to the chosen scheme, dig holes with a scoop somewhat deeper than the size of the cups with seedlings.
Half a glass of wood ash and a tablespoon of azofoska are added to each hole as a local fertilizer, mixed well with the soil and 1-2 liters of warm water are poured. Often holes are even dug with a shovel to add more local fertilizers.
Carefully removing the seedlings from the cup, lower them into the hole. Peat pots are buried along with all their contents. It is possible to bury the seedlings slightly, right down to the cotyledon leaves, but in this case they try to place them obliquely so as not to bury the root system too deeply. When the seedlings are good, they are hardly buried
Gently water the plantings with warm water, mulch the soil with any bulk material, and if the weather is not yet quite summer, temporarily cover the bed with spunbond or lutrasil.

Planting cucumber seedlings in a greenhouse

Preparing a greenhouse for planting cucumbers is more difficult than preparing beds in open ground, and may include:

Disinfection of the greenhouse carried out in the fall. If there are no diseases, the soil is simply watered with a solution prepared from copper sulfate and karbofos (1 tablespoon per bucket of water). If diseases raged, all the soil was replaced with new one.
Filling the beds with fertilizers (in April). In a greenhouse, the amount of fertilizer applied is even greater than in unprotected soil.
Formation of high beds (up to 30 cm in height) of a convenient width (usually 80 cm).
Warming up the beds a week before planting seedlings. The bed is watered with hot water with the addition of small amounts of mullein or bird droppings (1-2 handfuls per bucket of water) and covered with film.
Arranging trellises: you need to save space in the greenhouse. And if not all gardeners grow cucumbers in vertical cultivation in open ground, in a greenhouse this is a generally accepted approach.

The planting of seedlings itself is no different from that in the case of unprotected soil and is possible when the daytime temperature in the greenhouse is set at about 20 ° C.

In greenhouses for cucumbers, support must be provided

Basic rules for sowing seeds

To sow cucumbers to obtain a large harvest, it is necessary to take into account several rules. In particular, it is necessary to determine the appropriate number of cucumber seeds for germination, planting depth, and location of the seed. The process of further growth and development of seedlings depends on minor nuances.

How many cucumber seeds to plant in one hole?

You can decide how many seeds to put in each planting hole depending on the practice of previous plantings of cucumbers. If sowing is being done for the first time, it is better to place 3-4 seeds in each hole. The most powerful seedlings are selected from the germinated seeds, which are then left for development.

At what depth should I plant cucumbers?

It is recommended to sow cucumbers at a depth of 3-5 cm from the soil surface. When growing seedlings in decomposed cups, place them entirely in the soil. In the process of further development, the roots break through the walls of the container.

Using peat tablets when sowing, the depth is left at 5 cm. The tablets are disk-shaped compressed peat, in the middle of which a cucumber seed is placed for active development and better adaptation in a new place. Before sowing, the tablets are soaked, after which they increase significantly in size.

How to plant cucumber seeds, sprout up or down

The seeds should be placed in the holes with the sharp base facing up. A root grows from a sharp base and bends down. Green sprouts crack open the seed, push out leaves and push through the soil. If you place the seeds with the blunt base up and the sharp base down, the sprout will come to the surface of the soil along with the shell and may subsequently die. It is recommended to plant seeds in a direction not strictly upward, but with a slight slope to the side.

Site preparation

One of the conditions for properly growing cucumber seeds is the nutritional content of the soil. In the fall, organic and mineral fertilizers are applied at a shallow depth, leaving them to rot until spring. In the northern regions, the place is covered with fresh manure, and warm structures are built in the spring. At the beginning of the agricultural season, the soil is disinfected from fungi with a solution of copper sulfate.

If it was not possible to prepare the space for cucumbers, it would be right to postpone the work until spring. After the snow has melted, the soil is dug up with nutritious fertilizers. The optimal recipe for 1 sq. m:

compost - 1 bucket;
wood ash - 500 g;
superphosphate - 25 g;
potassium chloride - 5 g.

Before planting cucumber seeds, you need to complete the division of the area for the crop. Plants develop well in long beds with a distance between rows of no more than 40 cm. To give the vegetables enough space, a gap of about 20 cm is left between the bushes.

What fertilizers should be placed in the hole when planting cucumbers?

Active growth and proper development of cucumbers is ensured not only by favorable environmental conditions, high-quality seeds, but also by the use of the necessary fertilizers. Fertilizing saturates the soil in the beds with nutritional components, which the plant absorbs through the roots. It is also recommended to carry out foliar spraying during the growing season.

Mineral

A complex of mineral fertilizers is used together with irrigation for rapid growth of foliage and the formation of fruits with high taste. The following are used as mineral fertilizers for cucumbers:

urea;
ammophoska;
superphosphate;
potassium compounds.

Organic

Organic matter is added to the soil in the beds throughout the growing season. Fertilizers of natural origin increase plant resistance to diseases, strengthen roots and increase plant immunity. The quantity and quality of fruits when fertilized with organic substances increase significantly.

For cucumbers, fertilizers such as wood ash, rotted manure, compost, and chicken droppings are used.

Shelter after landing

In regions with a predominantly cool climate, seedlings must be protected from temperature changes using covering material. For shelter, you can use a specialized tarpaulin, opaque plastic film or thick fabric. It is important that the material does not press down the plants and does not damage their structure. You can put the cover on the seedlings only at night, and on a warm day, remove it to provide natural light to the sprouts.

Diseases and problems when growing cucumber seedlings

When growing cucumber seedlings at home, it is necessary to follow all the rules in terms of temperature, light and soil moisture. If something has been disturbed, diseases are possible, sometimes they end in the complete death of the seedlings. So, pulling seedlings cannot be considered a disease, but it can be lost even because of this completely harmless option, which is very easy to avoid. Sometimes, to prevent plants from stretching out, it is enough to just wash the windows.

Signs that something is wrong with the seedlings may include:

yellowing of leaves;
thinning of the stem;
curling leaves;
growth arrest;
wilting of leaves.

In each case, it is difficult to pinpoint the specific disease, since there can be many of them, and the symptoms often overlap. The entire possible list looks impressive:

blackleg;
root rot;
white rot;
fusarium;
powdery mildew;
white mosaic.

These are not all diseases, and to diagnose and treat seedlings you need to delve into the literature: in some cases you can try to save the plants, but often this is impossible. The most common options found at home look like this.

Cucumber seedlings fall and wither

It's not always a disease. Perhaps the plants simply do not have enough light. You need to shine a powerful fluorescent lamp over them, and everything can return to normal. Perhaps the grown bushes are already shading each other, then the cups just need to be spaced more freely.

Unfortunately, there are many reasons for seedlings to wilt, but in some cases it can still be helped

Of course, wilting is also possible simply in hot weather and lack of moisture, then the seedlings need to be watered thoroughly. Sometimes it doesn’t have enough nutrition, which means it’s worth adding a little complex fertilizer to the irrigation water. But, oddly enough, seedlings can die from excess nutrients, so you can’t overdo it in this matter either.

In the case of fusarium wilt, that is, a dangerous disease, unfortunately, it will no longer be possible to help. But in any case, you can try to transplant plants that are just starting to fall into fresh soil.

Why do the leaves of seedlings turn yellow?

Yellowing of leaves can also indicate a whole range of problems: from banal non-compliance with agricultural practices to dangerous diseases. At home, most often the leaves turn yellow due to poor soil, which simply lacks nitrogen. If this is the case, simply spraying a weak urea solution on the leaves may save the situation. But yellowing occurs not only due to a lack of nitrogen, but due to an incorrect balance of all nutrients; nothing can be done here without analysis.

Yellowing of seedlings is not always a disease, sometimes it simply lacks nutrition

Yellowing of leaves is also possible due to too low temperatures, especially at night, as well as due to lack of natural light. This is very easy to fix. Other reasons for the yellowing of seedlings are so varied that it is impossible to cover them in a short story.

What to do if pests appear

The most common pests of cucumbers are:

melon aphid;
ants;
root-knot nematodes;
whiteflies;
spider mites.

However, they mainly attack plants in the garden, and can only get home with soil, which is impossible with proper preparation for sowing. At home, you may also find miniature collembola worms that gnaw on the small roots of seedlings. In any case, various insecticides are effective against pests, the most universal of which is Aktara.

How to care for sprouts after planting in an open area

To obtain a stable and large harvest of cucumbers, it is necessary to provide comprehensive care for the plantings. The care process should include all basic agrotechnical practices: irrigation, fertilizing, pruning, soil cultivation and preventive measures against pests and diseases.

Watering and humidity

The soil around the cucumbers is watered as it dries, usually 2-3 times a week. Warm water is used to irrigate cucumbers. When cold weather sets in, watering is limited to prevent root rot.

Surface watering of cucumbers is carried out in the early morning, when there is increased air humidity. In addition, irrigating the ground part in the morning prevents the formation of burns on the leaves.

Fertilizer

Cucumbers need to be fed several times during the season. The first fertilizing is applied along with the seeds. Before sowing cucumbers, it is necessary to add organic fertilizer to the planting holes. The next additive is applied 2-3 weeks after the development of cucumber seedlings in a permanent place. The third portion of fertilizer is used during the period of active formation of inflorescences and ovaries. It is necessary to feed the cucumbers for the last time during fruiting in order to improve the taste characteristics of the vegetables.

Shaping and garter

The formation procedure involves the removal of damaged and old foliage, which absorbs nutritional components and interferes with the ventilation of plants. Pruning also ensures that sunlight passes directly to the fruit. A garter is required only when growing varieties with tall shrubs.

Mulching, loosening, hilling soil

The area around the plants is covered with mulch to better retain moisture in the soil. If mulching is not carried out, then after each watering the soil is loosened to allow water to pass to the roots. The hilling procedure is done to give plants stability by sprinkling moist soil onto the stems.

Pinching and pinching

The first 3-4 formed ovaries on the plants are pinched so that the seedlings direct their forces to further development. Pinching involves removing excess shoots. Timely pinching and cutting of shoots allows for proper distribution of the supply of nutritional components in the above-ground parts of the plants.

Choosing a landing site

Remember that cucumber is a light-loving plant. Planting in the shade will not allow the cucumber vine to develop and get a large harvest.

Plant cucumbers in a sunny location and at a sufficient distance from each other. Otherwise, you will get developed shoots of cucumbers with barren flowers, called male flowers. The side branches with female flowers will develop poorly; the flower will fall off without producing an ovary.

Inexperienced gardeners remove shoots with barren flowers, not realizing that this reduces the yield. For normal plant development, male and female flowers are required. To prevent soil depletion, proper crop rotation is used. Cucumbers grow well after growing tomatoes, onions, root vegetables, and cabbage. It is recommended to change the location of the cucumber bed every year and return it to its original location no earlier than three years later.

Excessively moist soil has a depressing effect on the root system of cucumbers.