Tips to ensure a great cucumber harvest

Growing cucumbers is one of the most common gardening activities in our part of the world. Cucumbers are everywhere. But they all love the sun, which we do not get as often as needed… but still, choose a spot in your garden that gets as much sunlight as possible. If you follow few other tips, you should be able to enjoy the best cucumber harvest you have ever had.

Grow cucumber seeds at home

If you want to harvest as soon as possible you need to pre-grow cucumbers seedlings at home. You should do so one month in advance. Cucumbers will germinate well ahead of time. Make sure to provide sufficient air circulation and soil moisture. Once there are no danger of frosts, you can transplant cucumber seedlings into a warm soil in your garden.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Keeping your soil warm

Cucumbers love light, and naturally, also heat. You can warm the substrate by placing a black gardening cloth around your plants. This will attract the heat, thereby warming the soil making your plants stronger which will translate into a better and higher yield.

Photo: Pixabay

Pick cucumbers gradually

The more often you harvest, the healthier your plants will be. Thanks to frequent picking, you will not have overgrown cucumbers. You can estimate how ripen your cucumbers are by their size – but of course, it depends on the variety you have. For example, pickles are ripe when they exceed 5 centimetres and long English or salad cucumbers are ripe when they reach about 13 centimetres. In general, the closer to the smaller size limit your cucumbers are, the tastier they are. Overgrown cucumbers can be bitter and they are full of large seeds.

Use grid

Cucumbers like to crawl and climb, so you can provide them with a support grid. Cucumbers growing above the ground will not only make your garden more attractive but you will create a better air flow and and better air flow will make your cucumbers more resilient to diseases.

Photo: Pixabay

Why some cucumbers turn bitter?

If cucumbers are bitter, it means that they have endured some stress. Well not psychological stress as humans but rather heat stress. This could be the result of irregular watering – due to frequently changing dry and wet weather for example. If possible, try moving the part of the plant that produces bitter cucumbers to an area where the temperature does not fluctuate as much and water cucumbers evenly and regularly.

Preview photo: Pixabay