Cucumbers: Direct Sowing or Seedlings?
1 min read By Екипът на Seeds
Cucumbers love warmth and moisture. Here is how to sow them, when to support them and how to pick every day.
A warmth-loving crop
Cucumbers stop growing below 12 °C and the seeds rot in cold soil. That is why direct sowing outdoors starts in early May, when the soil at a depth of 10 cm is at least 15 °C.
For an earlier harvest, raise seedlings: sow in individual cups 3–4 weeks before planting out. Cucumber roots dislike being pricked out, so each seed gets its own container.
How to sow
- Depth: 1.5–2 cm.
- Spacing: 30–40 cm in the row, 1–1.2 m between rows when grown on the ground.
- 2 seeds per station; the weaker plant is removed.
Support and watering
Growing on netting or a trellis saves space, the fruits are clean and straight, and the leaves get more air and suffer less from disease. Water with warmed water, in the morning, without wetting the leaves.
Plants yield the most if the fruits are picked often — every day or two. An overripe cucumber signals to the plant to stop setting new ones.
Gherkins or salad cucumbers
Gherkins are picked at 6–9 cm for pickling; salad varieties — when they reach their typical length. Parthenocarpic hybrids set fruit without pollination and are suitable for greenhouses.
Photo: Stephen Ausmus, USDA ARS, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
