Once again, I'd like to share my secrets for growing vegetables at our dacha. We don't go there very often—once a week, sometimes even less (work doesn't allow it more often), but we all love cucumbers, so after harvesting, we lightly pickle them and preserve them in large quantities.
For the last couple of years, I've been planting the Phoenix Plus and Vodolay varieties. I like them because:
- Fruiting is prolonged and uneven, meaning you can harvest every week. This is a good thing, as it's simply physically impossible to process such a large quantity of vegetables at once.
- For some reason, the Aquarius fruit is larger during the first harvest than during the last, although it's usually the other way around. And that's great! Because the first harvest isn't really suitable for canning. In short, the fruit gets smaller each time it ripens.
- The taste is perfect – tender, sweet, juicy.
- There is no yellowness on the cucumbers.
The only thing I don't like is that the skin gets tough if the fruit is left on the vine until it's fully ripe. So we try to pick them 3-5 days early.
I'd also like to point out that I've gotten the hang of growing both varieties side by side. They complement each other. This year, I managed to reduce the amount of work I had to do, and throughout the entire season (which is almost over – the end of August), my cucumbers haven't had a single illness.
The most important thing I focus on is:
- I prepare the garden bed in the fall. First, I mark out the area to determine which section I'll allocate for the cucumbers. Then I spread fertilizer over the area—a mixture of 1 kg of manure (make sure it's mature), 9-10 kg of rotted compost, 300-400 g of chicken manure (sometimes I add pigeon manure), 20 g of Azofoska fertilizer, and 400-500 g of wood ash. I mix everything first.
- Then I dig up the garden and leave it alone until spring.
- In the spring, as soon as it warms up, I apply ammonium nitrate to the moist soil. Sorry, I don't remember the exact proportions; I just sprinkle it by eye, so to speak.
- We harrow the soil in about a week.
- I sow the seeds directly into the soil. I do this in late May (I live in central Russia). I plant the seeds 6 cm deep in moist soil. I don't do any special preparation, but I do soak them in a light solution of potassium permanganate for half an hour.
This year, I added Exo as a humus supplement and Energin to accelerate growth. I can say I'm pleased with the results. - I cover the seeds with soil and mulch them. I water them once a week, but generously (from a watering can – 10 liters of water per square meter).
- When the sprouts reach 12-15 centimeters, I drive in stakes for support. Of course, it's better to do this before planting, but for some reason I'm a little afraid that the seeds won't sprout in these spots.
- I immediately pull the line through or just gridI attach it to support stakes at a distance of 2-3 m from each other. I usually use green so that it doesn’t stand out against the background of the leaves.
- When growing, I loosen the soil after every watering. I water it once a week. I just can't do it more often. It's been a bit hot outside for the last three weeks, though, and I was afraid my bushes would dry out. But no, when I arrived at the dacha, I saw everything was green. The overhead cover probably helps. In my photo, you can see that I'm simply propping up the net with long branches left over from pruning fruit trees.
- To strengthen the ovaries and stimulate fruit development, I feed the bushes with the following products:
- Agricola for pumpkins. I use 10 liters of water and 10 grams of the product per square meter. This is for root feeding.
- Boric acid – 5%. I spray the green mass with it.
- I always treat the plants with fungicides as a preventative measure. I like Pseudobacterin-2 and Fitosporin. I do this in mid-June and, if there have been prolonged rains, after the rains have ended.
I read that you should only leave 6-8 fruits on each vine – 2 at the top and bottom, and 2-4 in the middle. They also say you should trim the stems if they reach 2 meters in length. I don't bother with that; I leave them as is, since I have them climbing up a trellis.
These are the cucumbers I have growing now (I took a photo just yesterday when I was at the dacha):
Does anyone have any secrets of their own? Share them!