Growing Cucumbers

Starting your cucumbers early

Cucumbers are fast growers. They only need 3-4 months to reach picking size once the seed is planted. How you grow them depends on several factors.

WHEN you plant them...

1. Whether you start them early indoors, in a cold frame or greenhouse.
2. Whether you plant them outside after the last frost.

You will also have to decide whether you will...

1. Grow them with the help of a trellis
2. Grow them on the ground

1. Starting Cucumbers Early

You can start them early in the season, before the last frost, (usually in March or April) by starting them under a grow light, near a Sunny window, in a Greenhouse or Coldframe, or under a bellhouse. (See Pictures below): Or, you can wait until after the last day of frost (depends on your region and growing zone), and plant your cucumbers then.

Left to Right, Glass Bell, Seedlings in a Greenhouse, Coldframe, and Grow light. Not Pictured: You can also start seedlings in front of a Sunny Window. [Note: Glass bells are an old, traditional way of growing cucumbers and were used in the 1700s].

Starting Cucumbers Early Using Peat Pellets
If you decide to start them early, I personally recommend using peat pellets. In the past, I've tried all kind of starting soil and starter trays, but nothing works as good as peat pellets. I highly recommend them for the beginner because they are easy to use, and hardly ever fail to start a cucumber seedling, or provide it with good growth before transplanting. Peat moss pellets can be bought at your local nursery supplier, or major hardware store. See the images below:

1. On the left, an unhydrated peat pellet. Soaking them in water causes them to grow, like the one on the right, and they are then ready for seeds. 2. Most peat pellets come with little plastic green houses like the one above, that you can set in front of a window or under a grow light, or outside on nicer days. 3. In about 6 to 10 days, little cucumber seedlings will pop up like these.

Peat Moss Pellets and little greenhouses as sold in stores or online. Refills can be purchases for following years, when you don't need the "greenhouse" any more.

If you are starting your cucumbers, or tomatoes or peppers or any vegetable, early, peat moss pellets are an easy, almost fool proof way to go. The germination rate is high, and the growth rate of your seedlings is fast. I've used other starter methods but found that peat moss pellets are the best way to go all around.

Transplanting Early Started Cucumbers Outside
By the date of your last expected frost in your growing region, your cucumbers should be 4 to 8 weeks old. In the week before transplanting them outside, you want to "harden them off." This is an often used term which means to introduce your indoor grown plants to outdoor whether in order to acclimate themselves to their future environment. To accomplish this, take your starting tray of cucumbers outside and place them in a Sunny spot for a few hours during the mid-day. If bad weather prohibits hardening them off on SOME of the days, you can use an oscillating fan on them - indoors.

After a week of hardening off your plants, they are ready to be transplanted outside. Prepare your area for transplanting by rototilling the soil, or digging and turning it over until all grass and weeds are gone. Dig a 4 to 6 inch hole wide enough to accomodate the seedling. If you wish to add an organic fertilizer, sprinkle a little bit of horse manure in the hole and spread it around. Work it into the soil. If you are using a commercial fertilizer, such as Miracle Gro time release pellets, place a teaspoon of them into the hole and work them in also.

Once the fertilizer is in place, plant your seedling as deep as you can and cover the roots all the way up to just underneath the bottom leaves. You want to establish deep roots for your cucumber plant.

Gently water the plant after transplanting. Do it gently. You don't want to wash out the soil. Cover the young cucumber if cold weather or cold nights are coming in. YOu can use a small bucket, glass jar, or anything else you have around your house you can improvise.

Cucumbers are 95 percent water so you will have to water them often over the next eight weeks. Dig your finger into the soil about an inch. If it feels too dry, water your cucumber plant.

Fertilizer, I like to use manure that's been sitting in water for a few days as a liquid fertilizer. Not too strong. You can also use a compost tea and find directions for this online. Apply your liquid fertilizer about every two weeks.

When to Harvest:
The trick with harvest cucumbers is to fool them to keep producing. You never want to allow a cucumber to get ripe while it's on the vine so picking them a bit early is fine. Since cucumber colors, sizes differ widely according to variety, you will have to read up on the variety you are growing. If you are growing pickler cucumbers, 3 to 4 inches is fine and they should be dark green in color.

NOTE: Starting Cucumbers early is a great way to get TWO CROPS of cucumbers in 1 year.

2. Planting Cucumbers Outside

Since cucumbers are fast growers, they can be started outside when the regular season starts. Cucumbers grow as long vines which means they need a lot of room to grow. Plant them in hills, 2 feet apart along the same row, and 2 to 3 feet from the next row over. Whether sowing seeds in their permanent spot, or transplanting seedlings outside, plant them in small hills.

I like to make a 12 inch by 12 inch box (see picture), fill it full of composted soil rich with manure, and plant 2-3 seeds in each. Since I will be using a Cucumber Trellis, I'm only going to grow one plant per box, and I can grow my cucumbers a little closer together then if I let them grow on the ground.

Follow the directions on the seed packet when planting. Usually, this means planting them in soil that is 65° or warmer, 1/2 inch to 1 inch deep.

Soil: Cucumbers need a rich, composted soil that drains water easily. Manure has long been a composting fertilizer favorite.

Watering: Cucumbers are 95 percent water. Bitter cucumbers are the result of not being watered enough. Keep the soil constantly moist by checking it with a gardeners moisture meter, or digging your finger into the soil. Water directly at the base, never on the leaves. Never let the soil dry out. After your cucumbers are 6 to 10 inches, add mulch to the top of the soil to keep the moisture in, and the heat and weeds out.

To Trellis, or not to Trellis, that is the question

Trellis: As mentioned earlier, the modern method is to use a trellis to get the cucumber vine growing off the ground. There are all sorts of designs and methods for building a cucumber trellis. One should consider using materials that are most readily available to them and therefore, the cheapest. Tomato cages or cylinders can even be used. I like to plant mine next to my 4-inch mesh garden fence, which doubles as the fence, and a cucumber trellis. Below, 4 types of cucumber trellises.

Left, 4 inch mesh fence cut and folded into a tube wide enough to accomodate a cucumber vine. Right, an expensive A frame trellis available for purchase in the internet.

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Left, an inexpensive tomato cage being used as a cucumber trellis. Right, a cross-wood lathe fence doubling as a trellis.

No Trellis: The oldtimers didn't use cucumber trellises. Instead, they grew them on the ground which produced less cucumbers per plant and left it more vulnerable to pests and diseases. However, since they usually grew more plants, this more then made up for what they lost. The way they did it was to sow 7 to 10 seeds per hill, and each hill was about 4 feet away all around from the next cucumber hill. When the seedlings came up, they were then thinned to 4 and the vines were trained out in 4 different directions.

Types: Although there are lots of varieties, there are basically four types of cucumbers. One type for slicing and another for pickling. We cover varieties more in detail here. Besides these two, there are also types for eating whole, and even a burpless type. Good Pickling cucumbers are shorter, and fatter. Slicers are longer and thinner. Fertilizer: Fertilize every 2 to 4 weeks with a compost tea liquid mixture, or a brand name fertilizer recommended from your nursery. Harvesting: Never let your cucumbers become ripe, or over-ripe or get too large. You want to "fool" the plant to keep producing, so pick them a little early, before they get ripe. Never let them get yellow, or production will slow or stop. When looking at the vine growing vertically, pinch off the side branches when they get to 14 to 15 inches from the main branch. This will encourage more production.

Pests: The biggest enemy of a young cucumber plant is the striped cucumber beetle. The old-timers, below, used Bordeaux mixture which is no longer considered wise or safe. Consult with your nursery for a suitable fungicide. Screen netting can also be placed around the young plant to prevent the beetle from having access to it. Cucumber plants are most vulnerable to the striped cucumber beetle when they are young, but this passes as they grow to 1 to 2 feet.

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Below, Good Advice from the Old-Timers

From Home Vegetable Gardening from A to Z, by Adolph Kruhm, 1918 edition

CUCUMBERS—CULTIVATION AND PROVIDING A CONSTANT SUPPLY
FOR earliest crops, seeds may be sown in the house about middle of April in paper pots. These plants, set out, pots and all (with the bottoms removed, of course), will start bearing toward middle of June and continue until the first outdoor planting yields fruits. A third sowing may be made late in June or early in July, for a full crop.

After the young plants start to spread over the ground they should not be moved because it is apt to bruise them. They should be trained early to spread in the direction of the row. Keep the soil loose and free of weeds. When weeding the hills, which should be done by hand, be sure to press soil over any rootlets that are apt to become exposed. By pinching out the centre of vines they may be confined to limited space.

Several applications of liquid manure in the course of the bearing period will prove highly beneficial.

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From 1,000 Hints on Vegetable Gardening, by Mae Savell Croy, 1917

CUCUMBERS

The soil for cucumbers should be rich, sandy, and somewhat moist, but not wet. The seed should be planted in hills about three feet apart each way, in order to give the vines a chance to spread. Aside from preparing a rich soil, an extra handful of manure well worked into each hill will insure rapid growth.

Cucumbers for a small garden can best be tended to if they are trained on a trellis or wire fence. The roots can easily be cultivated if this is done and without danger of cutting the vines.

They are easily trained to climb and the fruit is kept clean and fresh by this method.

When saving cucumber seed, select the first cucumbers that are of about the same size. Pinch off the vine at the second or third joint beyond the cucumber but not until after the cucumber has turned yellow, for not until then will the seed be ripe. The seed should be taken from the fruit and left to dry in the sun, then washed clean and dried again, when they will be ready for storing away.

Cucumber seed should be placed in a glass jar where the mice cannot reach them, but the jar should be left open, or dampness may cause them to mold.

To secure very early cucumbers, start in the hotbed, planting the seeds in dirt bands or small paper boxes which can be procured for the purpose. Even eggshells will answer. The young vines can be transplanted just as soon as the soil is warmed by the sun.

When planting in the open ground, sow five or six seed in each hill, and when two leaves have grown on the young plants, thin to two vines to a hill.

When cucumbers are started in the dirt bands and grow too large while it is yet too cold to transplant, check the growth by loosening the dirt a bit in the bands. This can be done by shaking them so that the roots will be somewhat loosened. Do not loosen the earth too much or the roots will not survive.

There is a small beetle which frequently attacks the cucumber at the lower part of the stem and the under side of the leaves. A piece of mosquito netting placed over the plants, held down at the corners by dirt, will keep these pests off, and yet the vines will not be injured.

Cucumbers should receive shallow cultivation, to a depth of about two inches, until the vines begin to run freely. After that very little cultivation is necessary except to pull out the weeds as they appear.

Cucumbers need frequent picking. They should not be permitted to mature seed until all that are desired have been picked. When once permitted to mature seed, no more new cukes will be produced.

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From Productive Vegetable Gardening, by John William Lloyd, 1914 edition.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are used almost entirely in an immature state. This makes it possible for the crop to develop in considerably less time than is required for muskmelons or watermelons, and therefore extends the northern limit of cucumber culture considerably beyond that of the melons. In central latitudes it is possible to produce a crop of cucumbers from outdoor plantings made as late as July 1.

Cucumbers are grown for two distinct purposes: For slicing in the fresh state (Fig. 140), and for making pickles. For slicing, they are gathered after they have attained full length and have filled out considerably, but before the seeds begin to harden. For pickling they are gathered at various stages of earlier development, but are especially desired when under four inches in length. The pickling of cucumbers is an important industry, and in certain localities hundreds of acres are devoted to growing this crop for the factories.

For the production of pickle cucumbers earliness is no particular object, and planting is usually deferred until at least the fifteenth or twentieth of June in order to escape the severest attacks of the striped beetles. In the case of slicing cucumbers, however, earliness is a prime factor, since the crop is most in demand early in the season. Therefore the seeds are planted as early as the weather will permit, and may even be started under glass by the use of dirt bands, as described under " muskmelons."

Soil.—Cucumbers demand more moisture than any of the other vine crops. They also require a soil rich in humus. Therefore they are usually planted on low spots near creek beds or in depressions between knolls, where the soil is black and deep. For the best results with cucumbers the soil should be sufficiently rich to produce the crop without the addition of manure in the hills, though heavy manuring in the hill is often practiced for the early crop.

For the planting of cucumbers, hills may be prepared the same as for muskmelons, and the crop planted at the same distances and tilled in the same way. In rich market gardening soil, for a crop of pickles the seed may be sown with a drill, in rows six to seven feet apart, and the plants thinned to a foot apart in the row. If the vines are trained lengthways of the row as suggested for muskmelons, the gathering of the pickles will be greatly facilitated and the vines remain untramped.

GHERKINS
Sometimes extremely small pickle cucumbers are called gherkins. However, this name is applied also to a distinct species of cucumber-like plant which produces small, oval, prickly fruits about an inch long (see image below). They make exceedingly fine pickles and are very high priced and hard to obtain in the market. They are the most easily grown of any of the vine crops thus far discussed and are much surer of making a crop than are cucumbers, especially in a dry season. The chief objection to growing them is the large amount of time required to gather the crop. The fruits are so small and produced so continuously that the task of pickling them becomes very tedious before the season is over. For home use, a few hills will furnish all that an ordinary family will care to pick.

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1902 Maule's Seed Catalog, pages on Cucumbers

Above, cucumber seeds for sale from a 1902 copy of Maule's seed catalogue. See these interesting pages from this 1902 seed catalog by clicking on the image.

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