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Select cucumber seeds, grow seedlings, wait for germination and get a rich harvest. Everything is so simple and it seems that the gardener’s happiness is very close. All this is at first glance. Indeed, choosing cucumber seeds is not so difficult.
The situation with obtaining a harvest of the same cucumbers is a little more complicated - you will have to use your hands and partly your head. Proper care of adult plants requires both knowledge and significant effort. Pinching and pinching cucumbers, watering and fertilizing, controlling humidity and temperature are not simple agrotechnical terms. Behind them lies the work of a gardener and the desire to do everything right.
Grow seedlings and wait for shoots
But this is, indeed, a concern for true professionals of cucumber art. Without strong and healthy seedlings, there is no early, rich harvest. Between it and good, even imported, cucumber seeds, an insurmountable swamp of failures, wrong decisions and the desire to do everything all over again can arise. This article is to help those who want to overcome this swamp without losses.
Preparing cucumber seeds for planting
The off-season gave the enthusiastic gardener enough time to decide on the variety or varieties of cucumbers recommended for next year.Whether these seeds were received by mail, purchased in a retail chain, or obtained by chance through friends does not matter.
It is best to use them in the first half of their allotted time.
The main thing is that they must be full-bodied and healthy specimens. Some of them will be used for growing seedlings, and the other will be used for planting directly in the garden bed.
The procedure for simple preparation is simple:
- sorting cucumber seeds. It is necessary to prepare a 5% composition of the usual salt, dilute 50 g of NaCl in 100 ml3 water at 200; Dip the cucumber seeds selected for sowing into the prepared solution for 20-30 minutes; low-quality and inferior representatives of cucumber planting material will float to the surface. Some seeds can be rejected even in an unsoaked state;
- soaking seeds: in a liter of water, dissolve 1 regular teaspoon of simple nitrophoska and a tablespoon, without a slide, of stove, wood ash; place cucumber seeds in the solution for at least half a day;
- disinfectant heating of cucumber seeds. Place the seeds in a warm place (at t = 500) exactly on the 3rd day, increase the warming temperature by 200 and keep the cucumber seeds in it for another 24 hours;
- at home, heating cucumber seeds can be done near central heating radiators (at t = 25 - 270) within 30 days. Heated in this way, the seeds acquire a number of useful qualities: cucumbers have more female inflorescences, they begin to bear fruit earlier than ordinary cucumbers, there is no usual spread in time for seedlings of one variety of cucumbers;
- hardening of seeds before planting. After the cucumber seeds have gone through all the previous procedures, they must be placed in wet wipes for germination. The process takes place over 2 days at t = 20 - 250 - until the seeds swell well. After this, the cucumber seeds are placed in the refrigerator for the same period.
In the same way, the uniformity of the cucumber harvest will be influenced by the differentiated planting period.
It's time for sowing
All cucumber seeds have undergone complete preliminary preparation before planting. They all look cheerful, well-fed and with well-hatched sprouts. It's time for the first landings. The timing is calculated in accordance with the conditions of their further habitat:
- If you plan to plant already strong seedlings directly into open beds, then the cucumber seedlings will spend almost 5 weeks at home. They need to wait out the period of possible frosts. The soil temperature should be close to 180;
- if cucumbers are planted in greenhouse conditions, then the seeds can be sown 2 to 3 weeks earlier;
- If you place dry seeds directly into the ground, then home care is no longer required. Before carrying out the process of sowing cucumber seeds, it is necessary to once again check the readiness of all garden property for it. It’s quite a lot and quite troublesome;
- free up space on the windowsill or loggia for placing all the cups with crops;
- arrange additional lighting, at the rate of 1 lamp of 60 watts. for 3 shoots;
- count the number of cups ready for sowing and compare them with the number of prepared seeds. Cups must have a volume of at least 400 ml.and a height close to 120 mm;
- calculate the required amount of soil for sowing seeds, comparing it with the number of cups;
- Place the cups filled with soil in the place intended for them. Water and allow to warm up.
Good soil for sowing cucumber seeds is a mixture of 2 parts of good turf soil, 2 parts of ordinary humus and 1 part of fine sawdust. For 10 liters (a bucket) of the mixture, you need to add a teaspoon each of urea, garden superphosphate and, familiar to gardeners, potassium sulfate. It would be nice if there was a glass of ordinary ash in the house.
Let's start sowing
In each cup you need to place 1 germinated seed at a 2-centimeter depth. After this, until the cucumber sprouts appear, maintain the temperature close to 270. And after that the daytime temperature is reduced to 200, and at night – until 150 for 4 full days.
A preliminary culling of the crops is carried out and after that the 20-day-old seedlings can be planted either in a greenhouse or in open ground. For open ground - early June. If home growing is planned, then the process of additional lighting comes to 1st place.
In open ground or a greenhouse, you need to make holes with dimensions equal to the size of a cup with cucumber seedlings. Between holes - no more than 200 mm.
After this, all the wells are spilled with a weak solution of potassium permanganate - half a gram per bucket. For each well you need to prepare 1 liter. similar solution. Behind day before landing Cups with cucumber sprouts must be well drained. This must be done to better extract the clod of earth with the sprout.
If the stem is stretched out, you should sprinkle it with regular peat or wet sawdust.
In the central zone of the country, cucumbers begin to be planted in open ground, without shelter, no earlier than May 25, until the beginning of June. In this case, dry cucumber seeds are used.
Swollen seeds can be planted in the first ten days of the first summer month. At this time, the soil temperature should not be less than 150 at the depth of the seedling cup (120 mm).
Sow cucumber seeds to a depth of about 3 cm, as in the case of seedlings. The distance between seeds must be maintained within 100 mm. The timing of germination of plantings strongly depends on air temperature;
- in hot, sunny weather and temperatures close to 250 sprouts will appear in 3 days;
- when the temperature drops to 200 the sprouts will slow down their development and appear no earlier than in a week;
- if the cold snap continues, you will have to look for ready-made seedlings on the market.
Seedling care
The frosts have passed and the planting of cucumbers, strong and healthy, already requires additional attention. They feel cramped and uncomfortable in the garden. Lack of nutrition and microelements. An attentive gardener will not miss any of these moments. Any delay in care threatens to reduce the yield, its quality and delay in fruiting.
First of all, a large family of seedlings must be reduced. Thinning should be 5 cucumbers per 1 m2 beds. After this, you should fill the bed with a damp mixture of peat and sawdust. In this case, the beds must be absolutely clean from weed.
Right now, for young cucumber shoots, the first feeding is so important.It is much better if it is foliar with an aqueous solution of urea. A similar solution should be prepared in this way - dilute 1 teaspoon of regular urea in a bucket of warm water. This is enough for 5 - 6 cucumbers.
Cucumbers really like it when they are looked after, attentive to them and courteous to them. They reciprocate their love with a rich harvest. Although it's so natural.
