How to Grow Cucumbers


Fresh cucumbers from the garden is not the same as the super market kind. To grow cucumbers successfully, you need to learn a few tricks. Cucumbers are very sensitive to the soil temperature so do not sow cucumbers until the ground is warmed up significantly. Soil temperature should be at least 55F before you sow cucumbers. Tips for starting the seeds indoors and then transplanting to the garden:  The ideal germinating temperature for cucumber is 75 to 80F. Time the starts so they are ready to be transplanted when they have two sets of leaves plus the tip growth. How long you can achieve this depends on the growing condition, but usually you can do this in 4 weeks. The seedlings will need to be "hardened off" before being transplanted to the garden. Hardening off is a process of exposing the seedlings to the environment where they are going to be growing so they won't experience the transplanting shock. Cucumbers are notorious difficult to transplant, the reason being their root system do not recover well. So if you could sow them directly in the garden.

No comments: