If there is a summer vegetable particularly popular for its refreshing and low-calorie side, it is the cucumber ( Cucumis sativus ), most often purchased in the form of a plant in a pot ready to be planted. However, you can do your seedlings so that you can grow your plants, which is also much cheaper! And if you have neighbors and gardening friends, you can swap your excess cucumber plants for tomato plants, for example. However, do not hesitate to keep more cucumber plants than the number you planned to grow, to provide for untimely nocturnal nibbling by slugs…
Don’t forget that the cucumber and the gherkin ( Cucumis sativus ) form only one plant which comes in different varieties depending on whether you want to obtain a large fruit to prepare in salad or tzatzíki, or whether you prefer to harvest small fruits to preserve in vinegar to enhance country pâté. As a result, cucumber and gherkin are sown and planted according to the same calendars and techniques.
When to sow and plant cucumbers?
Like all the species and varieties that make up the large Cucurbitaceae family, cucumbers are easy to grow as long as they are insufficiently warmed soil with an air temperature of at least 12°C, ideally 16 °C. The slightest cold snap blocks their growth (below 10°C) and frost is fatal to them. On the other hand, the rise in the thermometer causes these climbers to develop and wrap themselves around the slightest support available, thanks to their tendrils, in an impressive way.
Sowing of these chilly plants is done from the beginning of March until the end of April under shelter, frames, or in a greenhouse heated to 18-20°C. To start sowing cucumbers directly in place, wait until the end of April for gardens in the southern regions as well as the Atlantic coast, and mid-May for the coldest regions of France, when the risk of frost has passed. The advantage of seedlings in place allows you to obtain more vigorous plants since they will not have suffered stress linked to transplanting.
Planting is done around mid-May (a little earlier in regions with a mild climate) after the ice holidays which traditionally mark the end of the risk of frost: the plants then generally measure around fifteen centimeters and have 1 to 2 true leaves. , the time has come to transplant them to their dedicated place in the vegetable garden.
To put all the chances on your side to successfully grow cucumbers, you can take a look at your lunar calendar, always choosing a fruit day, but taking care not to confuse the periods conducive to sowing and harvesting. transplants that do not match. Thus, to sow cucumber seeds you will favor a rising moon phase which encourages the rise of the sap and therefore germination, while you will plant or transplant the cucumber plants preferably in a descending moon, when the sap irrigates the roots which helps with rooting.
If you choose to collect seeds from your cucumbers, be careful as varieties hybridize very easily with each other, which can lead to “degenerate” cucumbers. However, if you wish to do this, choose a fruit borne on a very vigorous plant, collect the seeds when the fruit is fully ripe, wash the seeds, and dry them in a warm, shaded place. You will keep them in a paper bag until spring sowing.
How to sow and plant cucumbers?
Due to their Indian origin, cucumbers require a warm and sunny environment, they need deep, fresh, rich, loose, and humus-rich soil, neutral or even slightly acidic, rather than limestone, dry and stony. The cucumber is greedy and requires soil enriched with ripe compost.
Whether sowing in pots is done in a warm layer, under a frame, in a greenhouse, or on the ground, you will put 3 or 4 seeds per pot or hole, buried one centimeter deep. Cover with a little fine soil and water. The emergence takes place in approximately 8 to 10 days.
When the seeds have germinated, you will only keep the most vigorous plant in each pot or hole.
Planting or transplanting at the stage of 1 to 2 true leaves should be done in well-loosened soil, without clods, stones, or weeds, by pouring a handful of well-decomposed compost at the bottom of each planting hole.
Regarding the spacing, you will arrange the cucumber stems respecting a distance of 60 cm between each of them, and keeping one meter between each row, placing the stems in a staggered row if you are making several rows.
You will benefit from mulching the soil which will help maintain freshness because cucumbers have fairly high water needs. If you let the cucumber plants creep, mulching will prevent the fruits from being in direct contact with the soil, which could lead to rot. But you can also have them climb or train them on a trellis, which saves space on the ground in the case of a small vegetable garden.
As soon as your plants are in the ground, be extremely vigilant about slugs and snails that nibble on your cucumber plants. These gastropods like humidity, like cucumbers, and adore young plants that are still very tender. It is advisable to be extra vigilant at the juvenile stage, knowing that afterward, once hardened, the cucumber plants will no longer be of much interest to slugs.
In your vegetable garden plan, you can worry about the companionship of cucumbers: also, plan to plant them near lettuce, garlic, onion, spinach, and celery, which will promote production but keep them away from tomatoes, potatoes as well as other cucurbits with which the association is not successful.
Cucumbers are plants that are not very demanding on the soil, however, plan for a crop rotation of 3 or 4 years before growing them again in the same place. You can plant a cucumber crop after alliaceae, which would benefit it quite well, a priori.
If your seedlings and then your cucumber plants are not attacked by diseases, pests, and other parasites, the first harvests should begin 3 to 4 months after sowing.
