Due to wide use in cooking, many people often wonder how to grow cucumbers on loggias so that they can be consumed year-round.
Therefore, this article will discuss how, where and when it can be done.
Suitable varieties of cucumbers for growing in bottles
How nice in the winter or early spring to crunch in the kitchen with fresh cucumbers grown on your own ... balcony or loggia. However, before telling you how to plant cucumbers in plastic bottles, you must first mention that not all varieties or hybrids are suitable for this.
The fact is that on the loggia or the balcony, if they are glazed, there is no wind and moreover there are no bees that would pollinate the plants. And without pollination, there is no ovary, no ovary - and there is no harvest. Therefore, to grow cucumbers on the balcony, it is best to acquire self-pollinating or, as they are also called, parthenocarpic varieties or hybrids. This, for example, such hybrids of cucumbers, as "April", "Buyan", "German", "Brownie". But if you want to be yourself in the role of a bee, using cotton, you need to acquire the seeds of cucumber salad direction - "Pickling", "Brigadier", "Phoenix", "Kustovoy" other.
Growing cucumbers in the garden, it should be noted their good "neighbors": beans, dill, broccoli, celery, Peking cabbage, lettuce, radishes, beets, asparagus, spinach and onions.
How to choose a place to grow
However, the very desire to plant cucumbers in a five-liter bottle will not be enough. Here you also need to know the features of such a culture as a cucumber. So, in particular, cucumber is a delicate culture that is afraid of drafts and cold. And therefore, in order to grow cucumbers on your balcony, it will have to be slightly re-equipped.
Did you know? The German lexicographer Max Fasmer in the etymological dictionary indicated that the name "cucumber" is borrowed from the middle Greek language, in which "ἄωρος" means "unripe", that is, this vegetable is eaten in an unripe form.
Cucumber is a plant of a long light period, therefore not only a place is needed where everything is illuminated by sunlight, but additional lighting is also needed. The plant can not be supercooled, so you will need to heat your mini-hothouse. Well, be sure to regularly do airing the room.
Features of growing in bottles, how to plant a plant
Before planting cucumbers in five-liter bottles, you need to thoroughly prepare these same bottles. Basically, everyone takes transparent water bottles, but green or brown bottles can also be used for planting cucumbers.
Bottle preparation
In order for cucumbers on the balcony to take well the cultivation in plastic bottles, the container needs to be prepared correctly. The most suitable container will be ordinary plastic water bottle, the capacity of which is at least 5 liters. This bottle should be cut to 2/3. To get a flat cut, you can first draw a line around the marker and then cut.
And since the edges of the cut bottle are sharp, you also need to install protection so that the cucumber lash cannot be damaged in the future. Protecting the edge of the bottle can be made from an ordinary thin rubber hose, a medical probe, and even from a dropper tube. This hose should be cut along one side along the entire length and put on the edge of the bottle.
Important! So that the protective hose on the edge of the bottle, when cut, was even and did not cut in a spiral, it is first necessary to stretch both ends of the hose along the length and fix them with nails.
How to prepare the ground for planting
The soil for cucumbers on the balcony should be of high quality and with the addition of complex fertilizers. In any store for gardeners and gardeners sold ready-mixed soil, specially packaged in plastic bags of different sizes. The advantages of this mixture are balanced composition. 
But you can independently prepare the ground. To do this, take compost, sod land, peat, sawdust and wood ash in approximately equal quantities. Then add potash, nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers (5 g each) to this mixture and mix thoroughly. Also in the soil mixture, you can add 1 part of expanded clay sand, vermiculite or perlite, to give the soil airiness and increase its water-holding capacity.
Seed preparation for planting
Immediately before sowing, inspect the purchased seeds. All empty need to be removed, and it is desirable to treat good and full-bodied with a pale pink solution of sodium permanganate.
If in a pack you find cucumber seeds already painted in orange, green, blue or another color, such seeds cannot be processed with “potassium permanganate”, as they have already been processed with a special compound.
The scheme of planting cucumbers in a plastic bottle
Successful planting of cucumbers in five-liter bottles is as follows: take 3-5 seeds of cucumbers and deepen them into moist soil for 2-3 centimeters. Plant cucumbers can be a triangle, in a circle or in a checkerboard pattern. Fill the grooves with earth, press down a little with the palm of your hand or with a spatula and pour gently with warm water.
Did you know? In Sanskrit, the name of the vegetable crop "cucumber" is consonant with the name of the famous Prince Bout from India. According to the legends, Bout had sixty thousand children, which is why he was considered prolific and "multi-seeded."
How to care for cucumbers in bottles
After sowing, cover the bottle with its cut off part without a cap (for ventilation). Cucumbers are plants that are very responsive to heat, so before germination on the balcony it is necessary to maintain the temperature at 25-30 ° C, and at night to reduce it to 20 ° C. Periodically, you need to slightly loosen the soil and pull up weeds. Water as the soil dries.
Lash formation
Of course, growing cucumbers in bottles is convenient and profitable, but For a good harvest you need to properly form a bush. If you chose parthenocarpic (self-pollinating) varieties of cucumbers, then, as a rule, compact bushes with short branches are formed at them. And if bee-pollinated varieties or hybrids were planted, then they need to make pinching. It is done this way: when the third permanent (present) leaf appears, it is cut off completely with a shoot. Approximately a week later, lateral shoots will start to form from the axillary buds, which will have to be pinched in the same way.
On the windowsill, you can also grow plants such as dill, spinach, scallions, savory, rosemary, arugula, basil, tarragon and watercress.Cucumber is climbing plant and it is necessary to tie the formed lash. To do this, pull the wire at a height of about 1.5 meters from the surface of the bottle with plants. Tie a thickened rope to the wire and lower it down, tied to the bottom of the stem of the cucumber, which must be twisted around this rope several times.
Watering
Watering growing cucumbers is carried out regularly, given the state of the soil. It is not recommended to water cucumbers daily, as this may cause root rot. During the fruiting cucumbers actively use moisture, so during this period the number of irrigations should be increased.
Important! You need to make sure that the cucumbers on your balcony do not fall into direct sunlight, which can burn the plants.
Top dressing
After the emergence of sprouts should pass two weeks, and then you can begin to feed the plants. Top dressing can be done like this: 5 g of ammonium nitrate and magnesium sulfate, 15 g of potassium nitrate and 30 g of superphosphate are taken for 10 liters of water. It is necessary to feed carefully, make sure that the fertilizer solution does not fall on the leaves.
Common pests of domestic cucumbers
Growing cucumbers in plastic bottles on the balcony, unfortunately, can not always protect plants from pests. Most often, cucumbers affect spider mites, melon aphids and whiteflies. 
Spider mite infects the leaves, causing them to become marble-spotted. Regular watering will protect plants from this pest.
Gourd aphid affects the fruits, flowers and cucumber ovary. A soap solution will help to fight this pest. They need to wash the plant generously.
Harvesting
Since cucumbers are prolific plants and their fruits grow very quickly, you need to harvest every 2-3 days, preventing the cucumbers from growing.
The advantages of planting cucumbers in bottles
The advantages of growing vegetables in plastic bottles include:
- Tara - it is light and comfortable.
- Cucumbers in bottles occupy minimum space due to the fact that 2-3 shrubs can grow perfectly in one bottle.
- Water is economically consumed - goes directly to the roots of cucumbers.
- Plant roots are reliably protected from such a garden pest, like a bear.
- The complete absence of weeds that can muffle the development of cucumbers.
- Soil changes annually, so that it does not accumulate harmful bacteria.
Cucumbers grown in bottles on your balcony will bring you not only taste, but also aesthetic satisfaction. Green cucumber lashes will remind you of summer even in winter. And due to its dietary properties, cucumbers occupy one of the first positions in the diet of people switching to proper nutrition, or those who go on a diet.
