It is difficult now to find a house where there would not be window-flowers on window sills.
They add comfort to the apartment, and also create a favorable creative atmosphere. But to grow at home you can not only dragon, violets or dieffenbachia.
For such a breeding fit even cucumbers. This is not a complicated procedure, especially if you are planting ornamental plants for years.
Cucumbers on the windowsill will not only be a beautiful decoration, but also give a good harvest with the right care.
You can also surprise your friends with such a branch of the garden area on your balcony. Also cherry tomatoes can join cucumbers, and all together they will delight you with their bright colors.
Well, let's get started?
Perhaps you need to start with the advantages and disadvantages of this method of growing cucumber culture. The main plus in essence coincides with the purpose of cultivation - is to get fresh cucumbers in early spring, and even in winter. It's so nice to pick a fresh cucumber from your little garden and be sure that no one has treated this bush with pesticides.
Also to the advantages can be attributed, and an increase in the amount of oxygen in the apartment. In the leaves and shoots of cucumber, as in any other green plants, proceeds the process of photosynthesis, which is accompanied by the release of oxygen. And also these tall bushes will become a really beautiful decoration of an apartment, because you can always show the level of your skills to your relatives and friends, and especially if one of them has an identical hobby.
The disadvantages are: difficulties in creating an enabling environment as cucumbers are very fastidious culture. With a lack of light or heat bushes simply will not form flowers, and therefore bear fruit. But any problem is solvable, so these questions can also be solved.
The best place to accommodate pots and seedlings, and already mature bushes will be the southern or eastern wing of the apartment. If this is not possible, and you have to put the plants on the western or northern side, then you will need to provide them with additional lighting.
It is best to start breeding bushes in the period from mid-January, since even then the daylight becomes longer, and the sun increasingly breaks through the clouds.
But if you decide to start this process in late autumn, then be prepared to get large bills for electricity, because during this period the bushes will need to provide additional coverage about 15 hours a day!
Since the end of January, the number of hours additional lighting can be reduced to 3-4, and this is especially necessary in cloudy weather. For lighting, you need to use special devices, which are called phytolamps, but if they are not available, you can also use ordinary, luminescent ones.
Humidity is another very important point in the process of preparing and growing cucumber bushes. Batteries that are in apartments or private homes can dry the air very much. In order for cucumbers to be comfortable, you need to use special humidifiers, you can also cover the battery with a damp cloth and put trays with wet pebbles under the pots.
A general increase in the humidity in the house will benefit not only this crop, but also other plants and, above all, you. As for air temperature, everything is as usual. During the day, it should be at + 21 ... +24 ° С, and at night the thermometer mark should reach + 18 ... +19 ° С.
This temperature is mainly maintained in modern homes, but to the roots were not cold on the windowsill, under the pots you need to put the material for thermal insulation. Polymer compounds or wooden boards can be used as such material. Before transplanting seedlings, it is very important to create a good drainage layer in the pot where the shrub will grow until fruiting.
At the bottom of the tank will need to lay claydite, which can then fall asleep ground. The pots themselves should be large so that the bushes are not cramped in them, and there is also no stagnant moisture. Otherwise, the roots will start to die if the correct temperature and optimum soil moisture are not maintained. Six- or eight-liter pots are quite suitable for cucumber bushes.
As for planting, it can be done as immediately in large pots, and grow seedlings.
In the first case, the seeds that you previously purchased, you just need to sow in pots of 2 - 3 pieces. In the case of seedlings need to prikopat seeds in the cells of the cassette or in ordinary plastic cups.
The best option would be to use peat pots, which can be dropped in with the seedlings. Then some time after transplanting the seedlings will not be fertilized.
Before landing, be sure to sanitize seeds in order to remove all spores of the fungus. The soil can be taken purchased, and you can prepare yourself.
You can immediately prepare such a mixture of earth, which initially will be fertile. The composition of this mixture should include ordinary soil, sawdust, dry foliage, as well as soil from the store. Everything needs to be mixed in a proportion of 2: 1: 1: 1, adding about 100 g of ash and crushed chalk, as well as 200 g of dry manure.
With this kind of soil, cucumbers will not be needed at all. The resulting mixture will need to fall asleep in pots, and disinfect with a strong solution of potassium permanganate. After the emergence of seedlings in both cases of seed laying, it is necessary to maintain the temperature at + 22 ... + 24 ° С, and at night it is possible to decrease to + 17 ... + 18 ° С.
Need 2 - 3 times a day moisten sprouts and soilby spraying them with warm water from a spray bottle.
When the seedlings appeared on 3 - 4 of this leaf, the seedlings can already be transplanted into large pots. You can not shake the bushes to remove the ground from the roots. Immediately after planting, cucumbers should be watered and left to rest for several days, until they finally take root.
If you did not make nutrient soil, then you need every week apply special fertilizer to the ground. When the bushes enter the active vegetative phase, you need to feed them nitrophoska (about 4 g per 1 liter of water).
While the bushes grow, the leaves may be slightly tied up or lose color. This is a sure sign that you need to conduct foliar dressing, that is, in the evening to process the bushes with a solution of calcium nitrate or urea.
Not all varieties can take root in the housing climate, so you should be extremely careful when choosing seeds, especially if you have never dealt with this method of growing cucumber bushes.
It is also interesting to read about the beam varieties of cucumbers.
Grade "Gribovchanka"
Parthenocarpic hybrid. The type of flowering is mostly female.
Bushes fruit well, even in low light conditions. Plants discard a small amount of lateral shoots.
The fruits are long (on average 22 - 25 cm), in weight they reach 250 - 260 g, the surface is smooth, the spikes are white, the taste of the Zelentsi is excellent.
This hybrid is not affected by root rot, olive spot and askohitoza. Productivity is very high - about 28 kg square meters. m. The variety is normally experiencing temperature fluctuations.
Grade "Stella"
Hybrid with high parthenocarpy and mostly female flowers.
Fruits are oval, grow to 15 - 25 cm in length, with a smooth, shiny skin, without bitterness.
Used for making salads due to its excellent taste. Shrubs branch weakly, so unpretentious in the care. Zelentsy ripen almost simultaneously, with each of them grows of sufficiently high quality.
Does not like the increased amount of nitrogen in the soil, as they will not grow old for a long time and grow well. In the hybrid laid resistance to downy mildew and askohitoza.
Variety "King"
Hybrid. Partenokarpik salad destination.
By the time of ripening falls under the category of medium (57 - 67 days). Bushes are compact, branching is limited, interstices are medium.
Fruits are cylindrical in shape, with a small amount of irregularities and white pubescence. The color of the cucumbers is normal, but there are also yellow stripes.
Grow up to 20 - 22 cm in length, and in weight gain 145 - 195 g. The average yield is 18 kg per square meter. The hybrid is immune to both types of powdery mildew.
Sort "Athlete"
Very shade-tolerant parthenokarpik hybrid origin.
Plants need an average of 50 - 55 days for entry into fruiting.
Bushes are very powerful, with lots of leaves.
Large fruits (18–20 cm, 180–200 g), with large tubercles, spindle-shaped, white needles.
Productivity is simply amazing - 30 - 35 kg per sq.m.
Cucumber Care Tips
- Formation
- Watering
- Top dressing
When the fifth or sixth leaf appears on the stem, it is time to tie up the bushes.
For this you need prikopat meter count in the middle of the tank and tie a shoot to it, and you need to tie it with soft tissue shreds so as not to cause mechanical damage to the shoots.
A sufficiently long stem can be attached to the window itself, but care must be taken to ensure that it does not freeze.
As for pruning, there are also no problems. Side branches should be cut at the level of the first leaf, so that only one ovary remains.
Those shoots that will be formed on the new, need to be cut in the same way. When the center conductor begins to outgrow the length of the window, you will need to pinch the tip of this escape.
It is necessary to replenish the moisture reserves in the ground every day with water, which for some time stood and warmed up to at least + 27 ° С. If the weather is sunny outside, then the earth needs more moisture, so the volume of watering needs to be increased. It is important not to overdo it in this matter, otherwise the root system will start to rot.
Feeding cucumbers is a very delicate matter. This procedure is carried out if necessary. If the soil was harvested fertile, then fertilizer is generally not necessary. If the bushes are weak, and the leaves have dropped, then you need to take urgent measures.
To do this, you need to use those complexes of mineral or liquid fertilizers that do not have a peculiar smell.
The time for the first fertilization procedure is the bushes reaching the age of one and a half months, and this period should be counted from the moment the first shoots appear on the ground surface.
The interval between two supplements is approximately 25 to 30 days.
Harvesting is necessary when it has reached the age of 6-7 days, and this should be done often, so that the process of formation of new cucumbers takes place.
Now it is clear what the cultivation of cucumbers on the windowsill is, how to carry out this procedure, and after that - pamper yourself with fresh cucumbers in the middle of March.
