Indoor Cucumber Care Calendar

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

When growing cucumbers in indoor conditions, nuances arise that usually do not bother gardeners in the open field. Here you need to work hard to create optimal conditions for your pets. Experienced farmers advise starting a journal to mark the dates of completed activities and not get lost in caring for your indoor vegetables

Top dressing of cucumber seedlings

The first number that should be noted in your gardener's diary is the date of emergence of seedlings on the surface after sowing. In two weeks, you will need to carry out the first feeding of the seedlings. Until this moment, the nursery is kept in relatively cool conditions - this will save the plants from stretching.

Another technique that will further help curb the growth of cucumbers and at the same time strengthen the root system is pinching the top over the 5th leaf. You should also provide plants with additional lighting - about 2 hours after dusk.

Cucumbers are big fans of organic fertilizers. And if on the beds in the open ground they are placed on a site that was previously well filled with manure, then in room conditions, for this purpose, the plantings are watered with fertilizer diluted with water:

• mullein - in a ratio of 1: 8 with water;

• or bird droppings - in proportions 1:12 with water.

Also a suitable top dressing would be a garden mixture, an aqueous solution of nitroammofoska.

The next feeding date is planned in another week and a half. This time, in addition to nitrogen fertilizers, potash fertilizers and superphosphate are used.

Transplanting and watering seedlings

The next date on the calendar is the day of transplanting seedlings to a permanent place. It is carried out 2-3 days after the second feeding. Check with their records - by this time the plants should be 25-27 days old.

To make the cucumbers easier to extract from the nursery, the plants are watered abundantly before transplanting. When the seeds have been sown in separate pots, they can be placed in a bowl of water for a while. This makes it easier to remove the plants from the container.

Cucumbers are placed in new holes with a lump of old earth. But planting is carried out at a greater depth than the seedlings grew before - about 3 cm lower. Seedling roots are carefully compacted with soil. After watering, the soil will settle and the roots may be exposed. Therefore, you need to have a soil mixture at hand in order to add it to the seedlings. In addition, this technique protects moisture from rapid evaporation, and, as you know, cucumbers are very moisture-loving plants. Another benefit of adding dry soil is to keep the soil from forming a hard crust.

After moving the cucumbers to a permanent place of feeding, they are carried out 3-4 times a month. The calendar marks not only the date of fertilization, but also the type of feeding. It is recommended to adhere to this scheme: 2 times with nitrophos and the third with mullein solution. About 0.5 liters of fertilizer is used per plant. When the cucumbers begin to bear fruit, the amount of dressing is increased.

For indoor cultivation, parthenocarpic varieties are taken. But if another variety was planted, the plants will need to be manually pollinated. In the field, insects cope with this task, and in indoor conditions this concern falls on the shoulders of a person. For this, pollen from male flowers is transferred to female neighboring plants. It is advisable to pollinate the female flower on the day it opens its petals.

Ladders for cucumbers

We must not forget that cucumbers are liana-like plants. And for normal development, its long lashes will need support. To do this, you can dig in two high pegs, between which twine is pulled at different levels. It will be easy for cucumbers to crawl up such a ladder.

If there are no suitable pegs, you can use the rope. When cucumbers are grown on a windowsill, the ends are pulled between the pots and the upper window frame.