Planning a Vegetable Garden

Posts Tagged ‘Container Gardening’

It’s easy to learn how to grow cucumbers, if you remember they like sunshine and moist soil.  Here are some tips on growing cucumbers with abundance.

Starting Cucumber Seeds

Depending on your climate, you can either start cucumber seeds inside, or you can plant them directly outside. 

If you want to plant them directly outside, make sure the soil is warm — at least 75 degrees — and that the ground is damp, but not wet.  You can plant in large containers, in rows, or on “hills”.

If you start cucumber seeds inside, I’ve had good luck using the jiffy peat disks.  That way, once they have sprouted and developed their first true leaf, I can plant them, jiffy disk and all, into the garden.

Either way, cucumber seeds generally sprout in around 3 to 7 days.

Spacing in the Garden

When it comes to spacing cucumber plants in the garden, I like to plant in hills, 2 plants to a hill.

“Hill” is kind of a strange term.  It can mean an actual mound of soil…or just the spacing of the plants.  I personally don’t mound my soil.  I just put 2 plants about 12 inches apart, and keep the “hills” 4 feet apart.

If you want to space cucumbers in a traditional row, try putting the plants 2 feet apart, with 4 feet between rows.

Cucumbers in Containers

You can indeed grow cucumbers in containers!  I grow them in 5-gallon containers myself.  Just remember to keep the plants watered and fed more often than if the plants were in the ground.  Containers dry out faster, and the more frequent watering leaches the fertilizer from the soil.

The photo shows on of my “baby” cucumbers from one of the container plants.

Sunlight and Soil

As I mentioned, cucumbers like warm feet — warm soil, that is.  They also like plenty of sunshine.  But also give these plants room to roam — the vines can grow mighty long.

I like to grow the cucumbers in soil that’s been heavily amended with compost.

Growing Cucumbers Vertically

After an interesting experiement I had with growing cukes and zucchini upside down, I’ve decided it’s not for anyone who regularly gets winds more than 10 miles an hour.  Well, not unless you have a sheltered spot that has a windbreak.

Unfortunately, my cucumbers and zucchini got pretty beat up from the wind, so I had to pull them down and plant them in the ground (where they are much happier).

However, if you do have a spot in the garden that doesn’t get a lot of wind, it’s very much worth growing your cucumber vines on a trellis or upside-down.  Your cucumber fruits will grow straighter as a result.

How to Grow Cucumbers – Variety

The cucumber variety ““ is easy to find and is a great open-pollinated seed variety.  Another popular open pollinated variety is called ““.   And if you’d like to try something a little on the unusual side, try ““.

However, I am trialing the variety “Sweet Success” and so far, I am very impressed.  And will probably drown in cucumbers before very long!  I planted 4 seeds, and in reality, I could easily have gotten by with planting just 1 — the plant is that prolific!

Sweet Success has only female blossoms, so every flower bears a cucumber.  And my plants have a flower at every leaf node.  The first of the cukes will be eating-size within a week, so if they taste half as good as they look, these plants will have a permanent spot in my garden. 

Here’s the link: Sweet Success hybrid slicing cucumber.

Enjoy growing, harvesting and (especially) eating your cucumbers!

Update

I’ve picked 3 huge (around 14 inch) Sweet Success cucumbers so far, with a 4th ready for plucking. The taste is mild but good — no bitterness at all. Nice and firm throughout; no watery texture anywhere. Tiny undeveloped seeds, so it would be great for anyone who doesn’t tolerate the seeds well.

So I give this cucumber 2 thumbs up and will keep it ongoing in my garden.

Growing vegetables in containers is an option for almost anyone — even those who have the space for a tradtional garden. What are the upsides and downsides of container vegetable gardens?

What Kinds of Vegetables?

While you can grow just about any veggie in a container, some are better-adapted than others.  For example, a determinate tomato plant is an excellent candidate; sweet corn is not.

While you could grow sweet corn in containers, you’d need an awful lot of them, because corn is a wind-pollinated vegetable.  Normally the minimum number of corn plants you’d want is 4 rows of 4 plants (16 total).   So in general, corn isn’t a good option (but certainly possible if you have the room and the containers).

The only other plants I wouldn’t suggest for a container vegetable garden are pumpkins and watermelons.  Both of them get huge and for the most part, you can’t trellis them (unlike most other curcubits).

So aside from these three, you have a lot of options, most of which depends on your space and the size of your containers.

What Size Containers?

I’ve done my share of container gardening, in spite of having lots of room for a traditional garden; right now I have both.  The most often used containers in my garden is 5-gallon size, followed by 3-gallon.  I also have a few 10-gallon and 15-gallon containers, where I grow the bigger plants.

What about the little containers?  While I have successfully grown vegetables in 1 gallon pots, it was a bit more trouble than it was worth.  Unless you are growing the veggies inside under lights, I don’t recommend them.

I’ve grown the following very nicely in a 5-gallon container:

• Beans
• Lettuce
• Cucumbers
• Peppers
• Spinach
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Zucchini

I’m about to experiment with some cantaloupe in a container as well.

When it comes to 3-gallon containers, my best luck has been with the shorter determinate tomatoes and peppers (sweet and hot).  Bell peppers seem to do better in 5-gallon pots, though (at least for me).

I personally haven’t tried veggies such as eggplant, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, etc. mainly because they aren’t vegetables that I choose to grow -or – my climate isn’t suitable.  But certainly they can be grown in containers!

Choosing Your Garden Location

It’s very little different from choosing a location for a traditional garden.  You want at least 6 hours of direct sun per day (8 is better) and easy access to water — container-grown veggies drink quite a bit!  It’s best if you can avoid a very windy location, but if you can set up a windbreak of sorts, that would work.  A windy location dries out the plants fast.

How much space do you have available?  Whether you have a large patio or a small balcony, your vegetable plants will still need room between them for air circulation.   They also need to be spaced so that a tall plant doesn’t shade out a shorter one.

Plus, you need to be able to move around easily to water the plants and harvest your crop!

One final thought; you are potentially going to be hauling  (heavy) bags of potting soil and compost to fill these containers; consider how you’re going to get the soil/compost to the location you’ve chosen.  I’ve discovered that 40 pounds of compost + 40 pounds of organic potting mix fills roughly four 5-gallon containers.  Not necessarily a problem if you are on a ground floor; might be a problem if you have to climb stairs.

Growing Vegetables in Containers – Final Notes

Growing vegetables in containers can be very, very rewarding.  But there are two things that you will need to consider, to make your plants happy and producing.

In containers, plants need more water and fertilizer than if they were in the garden.  More water because the soil in the containers dries out faster.  More fertilizer because more watering dilutes the fertilizer faster.  And especially with 3 and 5 gallon containers, there isn’t a whole lot of space in which to find extra nutrients.

You’ll also need to consider which plants are “greedy”.  Squash in particular likes to be well-watered and well-fed.   Cukes and other such plants aren’t far behind.

The general rule of thumb is to feed your vegetable plants twice as often, with half as much.  For example, I use a fish emulsion/kelp liquid fertilizer, and I dilute it to half strength — but feed twice as often.

So grow your vegetables in containers and with just a little extra care,  enjoy a  nice harvest!