Content
Cucumbers are a crop that has long become one of the most popular in our country. Most gardeners prefer cucumbers, since cucumbers ripen early and bear fruit for a long time, and their cultivation does not require special care and does not force all the time to spend in the garden. Each summer resident has his own way of how to grow and take care of cucumbers. Many people grow cucumber seedlings first, and then transfer them to open ground, but not everyone knows that in most areas plant cucumbers can be directly into the open ground with seeds and this method is no less productive than seedlings. We will talk about this in the article.
Where and when is it better to plant cucumbers
Cucumber is a thermophilic culture, therefore, seeds are planted only when the earth is warmed up to 15 - 18 degrees. In most regions of Russia, this time falls in the middle - end May.
In order to more accurately determine when to sow cucumber seeds and its limits, you can calculate the date. Cucumbers ripen for 45 days, that is, if the sowing took place on May 25, then the first harvest of cucumbers will be received on July 10. From this we can conclude that it is possible to plant cucumbers in open ground before the beginning of July, otherwise they will not have time to ripen and freeze.
Planting cucumbers should be carried out on those beds that are most heated by the sun, and even better, if there are trellises around them, so that already large seedlings can rise. Do not sow seeds in windy weather.
It is best to sow cucumbers in the place where tomatoes, cabbage or other types of cabbage used to grow.
Preparing to disembark
In order for cucumbers planted with seeds in open ground to give high productivity, it is imperative to prepare the beds and the required amount of seeds for sowing.
Cooking the garden
In order to get a good harvest of cucumbers in the summer, sowing seeds is best done in a garden prepared in autumn. Where the cultivation will be carried out you need:
- Dig up;
- With increased acidity of the soil, dolomite flour, slaked lime, ash or special preparations are introduced;
- Next, you need to add organic fertilizers to the soil. This is manure, peat, humus or compost. They are needed in sufficient quantities, that is, up to kg per 1 square meter;
- Potassium sulfate is added in the amount of 60 grams per 10 square meters, this is very important for cucumbers;
- In the spring, this bed rises so that it is not flat, manure and mineral fertilizers are again introduced into it. Warming up the soil can be increased if the top of the soil is covered with film.
If the soil has not been prepared in the fall, then in the spring you can dig a trench about 80 cm deep, put coniferous spruce branches or branches of garden trees on the bottom. From above, everything is covered with compost and sawdust. The next layer is manure or humus. All this mixture is covered with loose soil no more than 25 cm thick. You can plant seeds in such a bed right away.
Preparing the seeds
First, you need to select seeds in accordance with the purposes for which they will be used. Growing cucumbers from medium and long-term seeds is perfect for pickling for the winter, but sowing early ripe seeds will delight you with an excellent taste of cucumbers in a salad.
Before proceeding with the preparation of seeds, you need to determine those that have good germination. To do this, dilute a teaspoon of salt in 1 glass of warm water and pour the seeds into the liquid. Those that immediately surfaced need to be removed and thrown away, since they most likely will not rise, but those that went to the bottom can be prepared for planting.
If the seeds are of the type of home, that is, the cultivation and collection were carried out by the gardener on their own, and not bought in a store, then before sowing them, you need to decontaminate them. It is carried out in this way:
- The seeds are soaked for half an hour in a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
- Rinse with water.
- Wrapped in a damp cloth and sent to the refrigerator for two days for hardening.
Purchased seeds do not need to be processed, since during production they already go through all these procedures.
The process of seed preparation is clearly shown in the video:
Planting cucumbers
Immediately before the cucumbers are planted, the bed is spilled with boiling water and covered with a film, which increases the reproduction of bacteria, which will warm up the soil in the course of their life until the temperature is stable. You can wait 2-3 days after this procedure, but you can sow seeds immediately after watering in warm ground.
You can plant cucumbers in grooves or in a row. The rows are made 70-90 cm long. The depressions are dug 4 cm apart and at a distance of about 20 cm from each other, if the cucumbers are grown in open ground. You need to sow two to four seeds into the hole. If both seeds subsequently come out, then they will need to be thinned out.
In order for the cucumbers to grow strong and healthy and not die at the stage of the appearance of the first sprouts, you need:
- Prevent the appearance of a crust on the ground;
- Remove weeds on time and with special care;
- Tie the cucumbers right away, without waiting for the moment until they become too long;
- After watering the cucumbers, loosen the beds;
- The cultivation should be accompanied by fertilization of the plant once every 10 days.
Care of planted cucumbers
It is not difficult to care for cucumbers, the procedure includes the constant observance of certain conditions:
- Thinning... The process of thinning is carried out twice during the entire time of cultivation, starting from the appearance of one leaf on the stem of a cucumber (partial thinning), the final one is done when 3 - 4 leaves have already been formed. The technology for removing an extra sprout is as follows: you just need to break it off, and not uproot it. So, you can keep the root system in order without damaging it.
- Topping... It is necessary in order to direct the life sap of the plant to the formation of lateral female ovaries.
- Easy hilling, which will not allow moisture to accumulate in the roots of cucumbers. This point will help cucumbers to form an additional root system, which will significantly increase yields in the future.
- Spraying produced with the aim of attracting insects to cucumbers, which will produce pollination. For this, the plant is sprayed with a solution of water with honey or sugar. The recipe is as follows: for 1 liter of hot water, 100 grams of sugar and 2 grams of boric acid are taken.
- Loosening the soil... It is produced together with the cultivation and thinning of cucumbers. You need to act very carefully so as not to damage the roots of the plant.
- Weeding... It is carried out no more than 5 times in rows and nests, and no more than 4 times between rows of cucumbers.
- Mulching - it is made with sawdust or straw so that the soil is saturated with oxygen, does not dry out, and the soil warms up evenly.
- Garter... It is carried out as the stem of the cucumber grows to the pegs.
- Temperature... As mentioned earlier, cucumbers are thermophilic plants.In the open field, cultivation is carried out at an air temperature that ranges from 22 to 28 degrees during the day, and does not drop below 12 degrees at night. Cucumbers should not be allowed to freeze or, conversely, overheat. In both cases, they stop developing and die.
- Daily watering cucumbers are carried out with warm water.
How to plant cucumber seeds directly into the ground is shown in the following video:
Many gardeners grow cucumbers in such a way as seedlings. This is the most common and considered to be more productive than sowing seeds. But planting cucumber seeds in open ground gives an equally pleasant amount of harvest. The main thing is to comply with all the requirements and prepare both the seeds themselves and the soil for them. Do not forget that cucumbers are thermophilic, therefore they are planted at a certain time and place. Everyday simple care will give a high yield, which will delight any summer resident who has tried to plant cucumbers with seeds in the ground.
