23.09.2017 6 020

Planting cucumbers in open ground seeds - step by step guide

In order for planting cucumbers in open ground with seeds to be completed successfully, and for the plantings to delight with a rich harvest, it is important to calculate the timing and timing, decide which scheme will be optimal for carrying out the work, and also properly prepare the bed and, preferably, a warm one...

Conditions for growing cucumbers in open ground

Cucumbers are among the most common vegetables that can be grown on site without any problems, but they need a special microclimate with elevated temperature, bright sun and absence of drafts.

Therefore, before planting cucumber seeds in open ground, you should take care of creating natural screens - their role will be perfectly fulfilled berry bushes, fence, or rows of corn and sunflowers planted.

Cucumber roots lie in the surface layer of the earth, and for normal functioning they need a lot of air and moisture. Moisture-intensive, loose soil with a high organic content can provide such conditions.

The first thing a novice summer resident will be concerned about when planting cucumbers in open ground is the planting time, which is not tied to a specific date and the main criterion is the soil temperature - this indicator should not be lower than +15 ْC. Planting cucumbers in open ground in May is carried out in the Volga region, Krasnodar region and other southern regions in the first ten days, and in the Moscow region and Leningrad region, cucumbers are sown in the middle of the month. As for the middle zone, the Southern Urals and Siberia, cucumbers are planted in open ground in June, in the first ten days.

Seeds should be planted in warm ground. If the weather is inclement, you will have to wait until the sun warms up the surface of the beds well, otherwise you will have to wait a very long time for seedlings. The risk of seedlings dying before they release cotyledons cannot be ruled out.

Seed preparation - disinfection, hardening, germination

Before planting cucumber seeds in open ground, it is important to prepare them for the difficult conditions that await them in the garden. To begin with, the seeds are disinfected in a pink solution of potassium permanganate for 30 minutes, then washed with cool water and dried.

1. The seeds are placed in a gauze bag and slightly moistened
2. Wrap the bag in paper and place it in vegetable department refrigerator for 2 days
3. Remove the seeds, ventilate them and dry them again at room temperature.

Some seeds purchased in the store have already undergone this treatment - they do not need processing or hardening. Information about preliminary preparation seeds can be found on the packaging with them.

Then, so that planting cucumbers in open ground with seeds is successful and the seedlings are not sparse, the hardened seeds are germinated. Not all summer residents resort to this procedure, but thanks to it only viable seeds fall into the garden bed.

It is better to germinate cucumber seeds on a southern windowsill. Spread gauze in several layers on a flat saucer, moisten it and lay out the seeds. Cover the top with a layer of damp cloth. If there are a lot of seeds, several such layers are made. Germination lasts from 1 to 3 days. All this time it is necessary to keep the gauze slightly wet. At the same time, it is important to inspect the seeds daily and as soon as the beginnings of roots appear on them, you can sow them.

Planting cucumbers in open ground with seeds - technology and diagram

Cucumber loves fresh organic matter. While its closest relatives, zucchini and pumpkins, prefer mature compost or humus, cucumbers prefer fresh manure. It enriches the soil with nitrogen and provides a lot of heat, which the cucumber needs for normal growth.

Therefore, special ones are built for them warm beds– in the fall, trenches are dug 80 cm deep, filled with manure, covered with garden soil on top with a layer of 20-25 cm. For the winter, they are insulated with straw and covered with film. In the spring they loosen upper layer, and as soon as the bed begins to “float”, cucumbers are planted.

If planting cucumbers in open ground with seeds is carried out without insulation, the soil will be flavored with manure in the fall, always fresh! You need to apply a lot of it - up to 2 kg/m2. Also, a few days before sowing, additives useful for cucumbers are added to the garden bed:

• for soil deoxidation - dolomite flour in an amount of 20-40 g/m2, depending on the level of soil acidity
• for loosening and lightening the soil - peat, humus and compost up to 1 kg/m2
• for enrichment with minerals - potassium sulfate 60 g/m2

The soil is dug up to a depth of 40 cm, mixed well and the clods are broken. The bed should be as loose as possible.

When planting cucumbers in open ground with seeds, the sowing pattern plays an important role. With sparse crops, the summer resident will receive a smaller harvest, and with thickened crops, they may not always be successful if the process is already too advanced. In addition, cucumbers growing in close quarters experience nutritional deficiencies.

There are two ways to plant cucumbers correctly:

1. In rows - with a distance between them of 70-80 cm, between plants 15-20 cm
2. In squares (in holes) - with a distance between plants in rows of up to 50 cm, between holes in a row of 30-40 cm

The first option is good if trellises are installed on the beds. After sowing, the beds are watered warm water. If there is a possibility of a drop in temperature, the bed is covered with film or non-woven material.

Caring for cucumbers in open ground after sowing

To prevent the seedlings from dying after cucumbers have been planted in open ground with seeds, it is necessary to create comfortable conditions for their growth:

• Water the beds daily with warm water
• loosen the soil surface
• remove weeds

During the day, when the weather is clear, the film needs to be lifted, and the bed must be covered again at night. If it's cold outside, you shouldn't open the garden bed all day - cucumber seedlings are very sensitive to low temperatures.

To prevent crust from forming on the garden bed, it is mulched with sawdust. Another benefit of mulch is that it reflects some of the sunlight, which is good for the growth of cucumbers.

All the subtleties described in this article will help you get a large harvest of cucumbers in the open ground; the main thing is to properly prepare the seeds and sow them in the prepared bed.

Get good harvest Not everyone produces cucumbers, especially if this crop is sown with seeds directly into open ground. Here you need to properly prepare the seed material, as well as observe planting dates. This method is more often used in regions with warm climates. IN middle lane In Russia, cucumbers are recommended to be grown from seedlings.

When to sow cucumber seeds in open ground

Most gardeners know that cucumber is a heat-loving crop, so its seeds planted in cold soil will not germinate, and if they do, they will be sick for a long time. Regardless of the region where cucumbers are grown, planting the seeds of this crop in open ground should be done when the soil warms up to 15-18 degrees. The harvest period for cucumbers is 45 days from the moment of emergence, so when planting the crop on May 25, the first greens can be obtained as early as July 10.

To sow the crop in question, you can use dry seed material or pre-prepared grains. Here, each gardener chooses an option that is acceptable to him. Of course, planting cucumbers from pre-prepared seeds will allow you to get early shoots and a good harvest of vegetables, but in some cases, sowing dry seeds gives the same result. This applies to Dutch hybrids that have been pre-treated in special solutions and growth stimulants.

How to soak seeds

• a substance such as potassium permanganate helps destroy fungi and pathogenic bacteria on the shells of grains. IN in this case one day before the expected sowing date, the cucumbers are soaked in plain water for 24 hours, then they are placed in a solution of potassium permanganate for a couple of hours. After this, the grains are immediately sown in the ground;
• one of the best folk remedies Aloe juice is considered to be used for soaking vegetable seeds. The freshly squeezed juice of this plant is mixed with water in equal proportions. The grains are kept in the resulting solution for 24 hours;
• Another means for soaking seed material is a honey solution (1 teaspoon of honey per glass of water). The seeds are poured onto a saucer, covered with the resulting liquid and kept for 6 hours, then sown.

How to prepare beds for sowing

Preparing a plot for cucumbers is not difficult. In the fall, after harvesting the predecessor’s harvest, humus is scattered in the garden so that it organic fertilizer was able to dissolve in the soil over the winter. In the spring, when it settles warm weather, plowing and cultivation (in the presence of large areas) or digging is carried out.

During sowing, holes are placed every 60 centimeters in a checkerboard pattern, and 4-5 prepared seeds are sown in each of these holes, the sowing depth is 2 centimeters. If the planting area is large, cucumbers are sown in rows every two meters, but the distance between seeds within one row is reduced to 30 centimeters.

If the seeds were sown in holes, then after germination you need to leave only 2-3 plants in the nest. When planting cucumbers in an ordinary way, thinning is not done. Further care Maintenance of plants consists of periodically loosening the rows (this should be done especially after heavy rains), killing weeds, watering and fertilizing. Note that the crop in question needs to be watered in the evening, using warm water infused in the sun.

Some varieties of cucumbers require pinching. This technique will increase the number of ovaries on the plant and allow you to get an early, healthy harvest. The described crops are pinched after the appearance of 5 true leaves. As a result of the work done, the cucumber will have new side shoots, and the process of ovary formation will also accelerate.

In our latitudes, growing cucumbers in open ground is very common, with correct selection varieties of seeds, placement of plantings on the site and proper care for them, the result of the work will be very good. At the first stage, before planting seeds for seedlings, you should select a place on the site whose conditions will best suit the needs of this garden crop.

Soil selection

The best type of soil for planting cucumbers is neutral; slightly alkaline and slightly acidic soils may be suitable. An excellent option is fertile loam or sandy loam soil. Other types of soil should be specially prepared for growing cucumbers: add compost to sandy soil, add peat to clayey soil, good result will give and deposit sawdust. The area where you are going to plant cucumbers should be well lit, as a lack of sunlight will negatively affect the yield of the plants.

On the other hand, scorching rays are also harmful and can burn leaves and harm shoots, so in the southern regions it is better to plant cucumbers on the eastern or western slopes of the garden. In the northern latitudes optimal conditions for planting cucumbers there are beds located on the south side. No less important when choosing a place to plant cucumbers is the standing level. groundwater. If it is high and the roots of the plant are in constant moisture, they die off, leading to the death of the bush.

In this case, the only solution may be the construction of embankment ridges. You should start creating them in the fall. The best direction for the ridge is considered to be west-east, especially for areas where conditions are characterized by low temperatures in winter and prolonged frosts in spring.

Soil preparation

Before planting cucumbers in open ground, it should be properly prepared. In the fall, the soil is dug up and disinfected with solutions that kill pathogens. For this purpose, the area is watered with 0.5% Bordeaux mixture or solution copper sulfate. If the soil is very depleted, you can add compost to it before planting cucumbers. Fertilizing fertile soils is carried out in the spring, shortly before sowing seeds or planting seedlings.

First, the ground is leveled with a rake, removing emerging weeds, then, about 10 days before planting, it is dug up with compost or manure (approximately 10–15 kg per 1 m2) and complex mineral fertilizers. If the garden is small and you need to spend each square meter, in a good way growing cucumbers is to use some type of support, for example, tying vines to trellises.

It is advisable that planting cucumbers in open ground should be done with a change of location every 2–3 years, otherwise the yield of this crop may decrease. It is recommended to plant cucumbers in beds where legumes, cabbage, and peppers previously grew. It is not advisable to have potato beds located nearby. The bed on which cucumbers will be planted in open ground using seeds or seedlings should be 15–20 m high and protected from gusts of wind by a small earthen rampart.

Methods for sowing seeds in open ground

Planting cucumbers in open ground can be done:

• Sowing dry seeds;
• Planting germinated seeds;
• Seedlings.

The first method is sowing dry seeds. It is most suitable for early sowing, when the ground is still slightly warmed up and pre-sprouted seeds may begin to rot. Dry seeds should be planted when the air temperature is stable at 15 degrees and the soil warms up to 12 degrees.

Before planting seeds, you need to make a groove 2–3 cm deep in the soil, or holes at a distance of 20 cm from each other. The seeds are placed flat in 3 pieces in the hole, the distance separating them should be approximately 10 cm. Cucumbers do not tolerate dense planting well; in this case, the lateral vines of the plants develop poorly. Therefore, it is necessary to thin out the plants when the seedlings that have sprouted from the seeds begin to have several true leaves.

The second way to grow a crop is to plant sprouted seeds. It is necessary to ensure that the sprouts do not overgrow; their length should not exceed 0.5 cm, since the grown plants will be weak and will give a poor harvest. The conditions for thinning plantings are the same as in the first method; developing bushes should be located from each other at a distance of 30 cm.

Immediately after planting, watering should be done every day with warm water. After the emergence of seedlings, the frequency of watering decreases somewhat - it is carried out at intervals of 1–2 days. If the air temperature drops significantly, seedlings do not need to be watered.

Growing seedlings for open ground

Planting cucumbers in open ground with pre-grown seedlings promotes earlier harvesting compared to sowing through seeds (about 15 days). To grow it from seeds, you can use a greenhouse or an unshaded windowsill. Cucumbers should be planted directly in the ground or in special paper cups, distributing the seeds at a distance of 8–10 cm from each other.

This method of growing seedlings from seeds is good because the plant does not need to be removed from the paper container when transplanted to a permanent place in the garden, so injury to the root system is avoided.

At a sufficient depth of fertile soil, sprouts sprouted from seeds produce many lateral root lobes, ensuring the endurance of the future seedling.

To prepare nutritious soil, you can mix peat and humus in equal proportions, adding a couple of glasses of wood ash and a quarter glass of superphosphate to 10 liters of the mixture. You can start sowing seeds on the 20th of April, distributing one per pot. Until the shoots appear, watering is carried out daily. Usually the seeds germinate in 4 or 5 days; after another 10 days, it will be possible to plant the grown cucumber sprouts in open ground.

At the time of planting, seedlings should be hardened off by slowly lowering the temperature until the conditions in which they are kept correspond to those in which the plants will grow. permanent place. It is necessary to take into account that cucumbers are highly demanding in terms of temperature. environment, bed illumination, soil moisture. Seedlings can be planted in open ground conditions once the daytime temperature reaches 22–25° C, night temperature – 17° C.

Features of caring for cucumbers in open ground

Cucumbers are planted in open ground in the evening, after watering the plants. Caring for cucumbers includes hilling up the bushes.

Covering the lower part of the trunk with soil promotes the appearance of additional lobe roots, ensuring the fertility of the shoots.

Hilling is recommended when the vines have grown 2-3 knees, as well as during the flowering period. You should avoid turning the vines and moving them to another place - this can lead to a decrease in yield and even drying out of the shoots.

IN industrial regions the air is polluted with harmful emissions, so dew that falls in the morning can have a negative impact on the development of cucumber bushes. Morning watering from a watering can to wash away fallen dew from the leaves will eliminate its adverse effects.

It is advisable to protect the lashes from gusts of wind to increase the concentration in the air carbon dioxide, necessary for the formation of flowers and ovaries.

The addition of organic matter before planting cucumbers using seeds or seedlings will also increase its content in the surrounding atmosphere.

Popular varieties of cucumbers for open ground

Varieties of cucumbers whose seeds can be planted directly in open ground:

• Murashka F1;
• BenefitF1;
• April F1;
• Masha F1;
• Fontana F1.

Diseases of cucumbers in open ground

Plant care also includes preventing damage to seeds and growing bushes by pathogens. Before planting cucumbers, you can disinfect dry soil with boiling water or a solution of potassium permanganate. As a preventive measure, seed dusting can be used. wood ash, spraying leaves with infusion of garlic or tobacco.