Cucumbers, Planting and Care

Cucumbers are a very popular vegetable on our table. It is 97% water and 3% vitamins and minerals, which are important for our body. It is very tasty, especially if unripe and very green. How to plant and care for this interesting vegetable correctly?

The seeds can be hybrid or varietal. They are distinguished by some characteristics, such as yield or disease resistance.

Hybrid seeds are demanding to care for. Therefore, they are planted in greenhouses and hotbeds. There they will be provided with mineral nutrition. Varietal seeds are planted mainly in open ground.

Cucumbers can be planted in a seedling and seedling way.

A reckless way.

The best seeds must be selected first. They must be full-bodied and large. How to do it? It is necessary to treat the seeds with a 1% solution of potassium permanganate. After that, soak them in water (preferably warm) for 20 minutes.

Poor quality and unsuitable seeds for sowing float up and are thrown away. Those seeds that remain are suitable for planting. They are planted in open ground. This is the reckless way. Before planting seeds in this way, they are first heated and soaked.

The seeds are laid out in a gauze bag and suspended from the battery, this is how the seeds warm up. This is necessary in order for the plant to be disease resistant. They are soaked 12 hours before sowing. You can plant no more than two seeds in one hole, since cucumbers tend to grow.

The seeds are immersed about two centimeters deep. The distance between the holes is about ten centimeters, and between the rows sixty.

Seedling cucumbers

In this case, the seeds are planted at home, preferably in peat pots, since they have porous walls and the roots of the plant breathe easily in them. In addition, young seedlings can be planted in the ground in them, since the roots of the plant can easily grow through the walls of such pots.

This way you don't have to worry about root damage. And the peat pot will decompose and become fertilizer.

Kefir or yogurt boxes are also used, but you need to take into account the danger of lactic acid bacteria, which cause root diseases. Harvest, thanks to this method, you can get a little earlier.

It should be borne in mind that cucumbers have weak roots and when transplanting, you need to be extremely careful so as not to damage them. First, the pots or boxes are filled with damp soil. Then the seeds are planted.

The soil must be watered periodically. Before planting in heated soil, the plants should be more than twenty-five centimeters and have more than five leaves.

To plant cucumbers, you need soil that is rich in humus. You should not plant cucumbers where there was a pumpkin, as diseases are possible. Cucumbers need to be fertilized constantly. They begin to prepare the land for planting in the fall. It is dug about twenty-five centimeters deep.

Fertilize the land with manure and humus. In the next two to three years, only mineral fertilizers are applied. The beds are sprayed with copper sulfate in a ratio of one tablespoon to ten liters of water. It is also fertilized with superphosphate (two tablespoons) and ash (one glass) per square meter of earth.

After that, the soil is dug up and left until spring. Before planting, in about ten days, the soil is fertilized with one bucket of manure, peat, sawdust, ash (one glass) and dug everything up. After that, the land is leveled and watered.

Every ten days, cucumbers need to be fed with urea, mullein, or ammonium nitrate.You can also add potassium salt and superphosphate when the plant begins to bloom.

Cucumbers begin to be watered with liquid top dressing as soon as they bloom. Watering is carried out under the leaves, so that no liquid gets on them, in the evenings. After the cucumbers are watered, you can add fertile soil.

You need to be careful with loosening, since the roots of the plant are not deep. At the time of good growth, you can water every three to four days. You need to remove the cucumbers so that the stalk remains.

Choose the best cucumber planting option for you and enjoy a rich harvest.