Sorry, I don’t know anything about growing Outdoor (Ridge) cucumbers
Greenhouse Cucumbers are generally F1 All-Female. It is important that any Male flowers are removed (if the female flowers are fertilised their fruit tastes bitter) – I get one or two male flowers on the F1 All-female varieties per season, so its not a big deal. [Outdoor Ridge cucumbers, by comparison, do need to be fertilised, so leave the Male flowers on those plants]
The female flower has a little baby cucumber behind it, whereas the male has a normal flower stalk (the same thing as Courgettes, Melons and so on)
Cucumber Female Flowers
I raise from seed early in the year (February), indoors. I use a bottom-heat propagator, but a shallow pot / pan of seed compost in a sealed plastic bag, on the window ledge, will do well.
When I prick out I don’t bury up to the seed leaves (cotyledons) as I do with all other seedlings. My view is that the stem between the Seed and the Seed leaves is designed to be underground – indeed, it will form little root nodules if above ground – and thus this part of the stem is more tolerant of water and damp, and I think this helps reduce basal stem / collar rot.
The plants are very fragile, and I avoid touching / holding by the true leaves when potting on. It is quite a challenge to pot-on a 4′ plant without touching the stem or leaves!
Once my conservatory is warm enough I transfer the plants to into a little plastic grow-house (which has a light-bulb at the bottom to provide some warmth on cold nights) which is against the house wall, as this provides more warmth, and also high humidity. I put them out into my cold greenhouse mid to late May by which time the plants are about 4′ – 5′ tall; I do this to avoid cold nights that they might endure by putting them in the cold greenhouse earlier as Cucumbers take a severe check if they get cold; I aim for a minimum night temperature of 10C.
I plant them at the far end of my greenhouse – less drafts, and higher humidity.
When I plant them in their final pots (11″ – 12″ / 28cm – 30cm / 10 Litres) I arrange the plant so that the original pot’s root balls is “higher” and the compost slopes away, so that the water runs away from the stem – cucumbers suffer badly from stem rot. I only raise 2 or 3 cucumber plants (enough for our family of 4), but it is probably wise to plant a couple of extras in case any don’t make it as many people loose a few to stem rot, or cold, in the young stages.
I feed with the same fertiliser, and routine, as I use for my Tomatoes, and I start the feeding routine when the first cucumbers have “set”
It is recommended that you remove the first few flowers that the plant produces, otherwise they form as expected but the plant “stalls” for a time. I didn’t know about this in 2009, and after the first few cucumbers in late May my plants took another month before they set any more fruit.
Each plant will only hold a certain number of fruits, and are self regulating, so don’t be alarmed if baby fruits turn yellow/wither at the 1″ to 2″ stage. Pick the mature ones and more will set – best to pick them as small as is sensible for use – this is often governed by them “straightening” enough to be a reasonable shape to use!
02-Jul-2008
Have been avidly reading your great advice re all sorts of issues. Wish I’d flaming read your advice on greenhouses BEFORE I struggled with a friend to put up a 2nd hand one. It’s up now but not quite as i would have liked it. VERY good idea about having the soil level lower. I will be digging out loads from mine tomorrow. 1 tip which may be of use to you which was passed on to me by a professional tomato and cucumber grower is to plant out the cucumbers onto a bed (good handful) of straw which evidently helps with them dampening off. I tried it and it worked very well.
Thanks Sue, and sorry I didn’t manage to catch you before you started work!
The Straw is interesting. Time was when Cucumbers were planted into straw bales in greenhouses. They were well watered and supplemented with plenty of Nitrogen to encouraged them to rot a fair bit before planting. Then a planting hole was made in the top and filled with compost, into which the Cucumbers were planted. The rotting straw contributed some heat (in the way that a fresh pile of composting manure does) to the root areas, and I suppose some Carbon Dioxide to enrich the air around the plants – although both strike me as being a bit marginal, but I’ve not checked any scientific literature. Probably easier (lighter) than replacing the soil in total ever year, but grow bags are the modern “low maintenance” solution to that I suppose and nowadays the possibility (probability?) of traces of herbicides probably mean that its touch & go to grow Cucumbers in straw bales – just another way for Cucumbers to think of dying when they wake up in the morning! I’m pretty sure I tried it when I was a lad – it would be 40 years ago now – if it had been a rip-roaring success I imagine I would have carried on, and remember it, so I suspect that the plants were nothing special under my husbandry!