Cucumbers
Cucumis sativus. CURCURBITACEAE.
Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Cucumbers
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow cucumbers in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- How many cucumber plants to plant
- Growing conditions for cucumbers
- When to plant cucumbers
- How to plant cucumbers
- Watering, fertilizing, and pinch-pruning cucumbers
- Companion plantings for cucumbers
- How to harvest, store, and use cucumbers
Growing Cucumbers
Cucumbers are warm-season vining vegetables, to 5 ft. (1.5 m) long, usually with bristly, heart-shaped leaves. They bear cylindrical fruit with smooth or prickly, deep green, white, or yellow skin and a greenish white, crisp, juicy interior with many soft seeds, though some cultivars are seedless.
Choose disease-resistant cultivars by letter codes: anthracnose (a), leaf spot (ls), downy mildew (dm), mosaic virus (m), scab (s), and botrytis or fusarium wilt (bw or fw).
Cucumber Plant and Care Guide
How Much to Plant
Eating Fresh: Allow 4–6 plants per household member. Pickling: Allow 18–20 plants of each cultivar, yielding 5 qts. (4.7 l).
How to Plant
Seed germinates in 8–10 days. Sow seed or set out seedlings in full sun in spring when soil warms to 60–90°F (16–32°C). Mounds: Sow 4–6 seeds, 1/2- in. (12-mm) deep, 4 in. (10 cm) apart, in mounds 16 in. (40 cm) wide, 10 in. (25 cm) high, and 4 ft. (1.2 m) apart, thinning to 2 seedlings per mound. Rows: Sow 2–3 seeds, 1/2-in. (12-mm) deep, 18 in. (45 cm) apart, in rows 6 ft. (1.8 m) apart, thinning to 2 seedlings per drill, 3 ft. (90 cm) apart for ground plantings, or 18 in. (45 cm) apart for plants grown on trellises or supports 3–4 ft. (90–120 cm) high.
Best Conditions for Growth
Growing temperature: 60–90°F (16–32°C). Prepare soil at least 18 in. (45 cm) deep.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp, well-drained, sandy soil. Fertility: Rich. 5.5–6.8 pH. Flowers may fail to set fruit at temperatures below 75°F (24°C).
Proper Care
Easy. Keep evenly damp; allow soil surface to dry between waterings. Apply ample water during flowering and fruit-development stages. Fertilize monthly with 5–10–10 formula. Vines may temporarily wilt on hot days, recovering overnight. Beetle, whitefly and slug, snail susceptible.
Pairing Recommendations
Beans, corn, peas, pumpkins, and squash.
Maturity, Picking and Gathering
55–65 days. Pick fruit when 6–10 in. (15–25 cm) long for slicing; 1–6 in. (25–150 mm) long for pickling (sweet or baby dills); 3–4 in. (75–100 mm) long for pickling (regular dills); 12–15 in. (30–38 cm) long for English or Armenian cultivars. Harvest frequently to extend development of new flowers and fruit.
How to Store and Preserve
Fresh in vegetable keeper of refrigerator for 1–2 weeks for table and pickling cultivars or 2–3 days for Armenian and English cultivars; brined and pickled, 2 years. Hot caps encourage early sprouting and flowering.