Growing Cucumber Plants

Although we highly recommend that you direct sow your cucumber seeds in the ground, we are also aware that planting cucumber seedlings is convenient. Either way you go, we also highly recommend you trellis them.

Planting cucumbers without trellising requires the plants to be 18” to 24” apart. They will cover a lot of ground so make sure there is plenty of room around them to spread with full sunlight. Only cover the root system and not the plant. We use some fish emulsion with each hole to give them the boost they want and to help with shock. Once planted, don’t forget to water them in!Once cucumbers start coming on you will need to harvest every day or maybe twice a day because they will be laying on the ground which will cause yellow spots and the spots will rot a lot faster, even in proper storage.

Planting cucumbers with trellising is the same as without trellising except the spacing is only 6” apart. We trellis them with a crop net zip tied to a row of T-post. You will have to train the plants by weaving them through the netting every three to four days. Doing it this way will allow the plants to grow upwards instead of outwards, which will save you lots of roomfor more cucumbers or other food plants. This way can even be done on your porch with the right size pot and the right kind oftrellis. This will also make harvesting easier, and they seem to produce almost twice as much without any yellow spots. Winner all the way around in our book!

If we didn’t answer all your questions with this basic guide or you need a more in depth guide, please don’t hesitate to contact us!