Cucumbers
- Germination Days: 7-14
- Hardiness Zone:3-12
- Planting Depth:1"
- Plant Spacing:18"
- Row Spacing:5'
- Growth Habit:Vine
- Soil Preference:Well drained, temp 65 ⁰F - 75⁰F, 0 to 7.0 pH
- Temp Preference:Warmer
- Light Preference:Full Sun
- Days to Maturity:65
Growing:
Seeds Starting: Cucumbers prefer warmer temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that these plants should be planted inside in the late spring and not planted outside in most moderate climates after Memorial Day weekend, which means late May or even into early June. Cucumbers do not tolerate cold, and even cooler nights without complete frosts can damage or kill your cucumber plants.
Sowing Indoors: Most cucumber plants do best if they are grown indoors for about 3 weeks prior to being transplanted outdoors. Starting the plants inside in early-to-mid May for transplant around Memorial Day weekend to early-June is the best bet as these plants need an average temperature of about 70 degrees or warmer each day to grow to their full potential.
Sowing Outdoors:
If you are just going to grow the cucumbers outdoors you will need to wait till the temperatures are consistently at or above 70 degrees to do so. This means waiting till Memorial Day or later in many mid-range climates, and sometimes even the beginning of June would be the best bet.
Sowing: Cucumber seeds should be sown at a depth about 1" and should be allotted about 36 to 60 inches of space between each set of seeds that is planted. Cucumbers should be planted on trellises as they grow to be quite large plants to produce a fully mature, grown cucumber.
Plant Support: Cucumber plants grow to be 6-7' tall and do the best if they are supported by trellises or other staking to help hold them upright for longer periods of time. Cucumber plants will grow thin, tall stems with leaves that spread from the plant and need about 4 feet to grow to their fullest maturity. Spacing each row far enough apart ensures that there is adequate room for each plant to grow and ensures that the cucumbers' growth are not stunted by the lack of space available in the garden or landscape in which they are planted.
Pests & Diseases: The most common issues that cucumbers will face include pests like aphids which will eat the plant and kill the crops. The most common aphid is a melon aphid which are about 1/16 inch long and are yellowish to green-black in color. Aphids colonize on the plant and are able to eat the leaves of the main plant, which in turn, kill the crops that the plant is helping support. These aphids secrete a liquid which turns into mold and grows on the plant and can kill the crops that are attempting to grow there.
Cucumber beetles are another common pest that are attracted to cucumbers. These beetles thrive in mostly warm climates and they latch to the plant and a yellowish-green tints to their wings and kill the plant by lying eggs near the stem of the plant, which in turn hatch and start eating the plant for food and cause the plant to end up with wounds or holes in the leaves that often times end up killing the plant off before it produces cucumbers.
Whiteflies can also attack cucumbers, they take the sap out of a plant and cause the crops that are produced to be smaller / thinner in size and therefore virtually unusable when harvested. While crops will still produce, they will often not be of a usable quality.