How to properly plant overgrown cucumber seedlings in open ground or greenhouse

They dream of the first fresh vegetables even in winter, therefore they choose the method of growing cucumbers in a seedling way. And they can be planted in the ground early, and you can get a crop of zelents in early summer. But caring for seedlings is difficult, it must be carried out correctly, then the seedlings will be strong, not overgrown.

How to plant cucumbers for seedlings

In the seedling method of growing cucumbers, there are subtleties that every summer resident should know about. It is important to choose the right seeds, process them, prepare the soil.

Seed selection, preparation for planting

Not all seeds harvested from cucumbers can be planted next year. The seeds are stored for ten years without losing germination. But to obtain a crop of zelents, seeds of three to four years old are suitable. Pay attention to the vegetable variety. Hybrids will not produce quality fruits. Self-pollinating varieties are suitable for growing at home. If you buy planting material in a store, then it is not pre-processed. Seeds collected by summer residents from cucumbers undergo the following procedures:

• selection;
• disinfection;
• germination;
• bubbling.

Culling of seeds is carried out by dropping them into a solution of sodium chloride. Empty seeds will rise up, and full ones will fall to the bottom.

It is necessary to disinfect the seed so that the plants do not get sick with fungal infections. Place the bag of seeds in a weak solution of potassium permanganate for twenty to thirty minutes. Then the seeds are washed with water under the tap and dried.

To accelerate germination, the seeds are wrapped in a damp cloth or a layer of toilet paper. Sprouts appear in five to seven days if the temperature in the room reaches 28 degrees. The emerging seedlings are hardened by placing them on the lower shelf of the refrigerator for a period of two days. The plant shoots that have undergone the procedure are not afraid of the cold in the future.

The cucumber seeds are bubbled and oxygenated in order to accelerate the germination process. In a container with warm water, along with a bag of seeds, there is an aquarium compressor. The procedure is carried out daily, twenty days before planting cucumbers.

Before planting cucumber seeds, prepare seedling containers. It is better to take peat cups for this. They are poured into two-thirds of the soil, consisting of peat, sand and humus, taken in the same amount. For ten kilograms of soil mixture, add a glass of wood ash, a teaspoon of fertilizer in the form of urea, nitrophoska.

The soil is disinfected by spilling with potassium permanganate solution or boiling water.After disinfection, the soil should be saturated with beneficial microorganisms within seven to ten days.

How to plant seeds correctly, take care of seedlings

Twenty to thirty days before placing the seedlings of cucumbers in open ground, plant seeds of vegetables in pots. In each container, two seeds of the plant are placed at a depth of one and a half centimeters. The soil is moistened and the containers are covered with polyethylene film. The plantings are slightly opened for airing daily, and after the sprouts appear, the film is removed. Maintain the room temperature at 25 degrees Celsius.

After four to five days, cucumber seedlings will appear, then the room temperature is reduced to 18 degrees, and at night - to fifteen.

Young seedlings need light. If there is not enough natural light, artificial light is added. Use fluorescent lamps, placing them five centimeters from the seedlings.

Cucumber seedlings are fed both fifteen days after germination and a week before transplanting into open ground or into a greenhouse. The first time, take a teaspoon of urea for three liters of water. Pour a glass of nutrient solution under the bush. Fertilizers are applied for the second time a week later, dissolving three grams of nitrophoska and six grams of wood ash in three liters of water.

Moderate watering is included in the care of cucumber seedlings. For the procedure, use settled water at room temperature.

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What to do if the cucumber seedlings are outgrown

To get the cucumbers on time, you need to take proper care of the seedlings. After all, seedlings can stretch out, weaken. And there are enough reasons for this:

• When there is little natural light, the seedlings grown on the windowsill will reach for the light. Their stems will become thin, pale. Installed lamps for supplementary lighting can cause burns on the leaves of seedlings. Fitolamps or fluorescent lamps are suitable for lengthening daylight hours.
• Room temperature control is carried out in order to prevent overgrowth of seedlings. For cucumbers, a temperature of 16-18 degrees is suitable, not higher than twenty degrees.

• Dense planting is another reason that the seedlings will outgrow. Lack of space causes plants to lack nutrition, moisture and light.
• Cucumbers love moisture, but should be watered sparingly. The drooping leaves of the plant speak of the need for moisture.

• The nutrients for the cucumbers should be normal. Excess fertilizers, as well as their lack, leads to stretching of seedlings.
• Overgrown seedlings appear if the cucumber container is cramped or the soil does not contain nutrients.

Eliminating the causes of pulling cucumber seedlings will allow you to grow strong seedlings.

You can correct the situation if:

• reduce the air temperature in the room to 18-16 degrees Celsius;
• increase the distance between seedlings;
• organize artificial lighting;
• water and feed the plant according to the rules of agricultural technology for cucumbers;
• pinch the main shoot over the second real leaf, leaving a stump of half a centimeter.

If the seedlings of cucumbers have outgrown, then use the method of dropping seedlings. A small depression is dug next to the stem. An elongated stem of a cucumber is laid there, sprinkled with earth and tamped. After that, the ground is watered. Soon, roots will appear on the cucumber stalk, and the top of the plant will harden.

How to plant cucumber seedlings in a greenhouse

To obtain early harvests, the seedlings of cucumbers, after the appearance of the first true leaf, are transplanted into a greenhouse. For planted seedlings, conditions are created when:

• the air temperature does not drop below fifteen degrees at night and twenty during the day;
• humidity is seventy or eighty percent;
• organize supplementary lighting with lamps with a capacity of five hundred watts per square meter of the room;
• daylight hours lasts twelve to fourteen hours.

Overgrown seedlings do not tolerate transplantation and take root with difficulty. Experienced vegetable growers advise cutting off the lashes of the plant before planting overgrown cucumber seedlings. It will be easier to transfer cucumber seedlings to the ground - they will not break.

Cucumbers recover for a long time if the root system is damaged. We transplant the cucumbers so as not to break off the roots, with a distance of twenty-five centimeters from each other.

The pinching of the shoots also plays an important role. They carry it out when whips appear on the shoots of the first order. They are pinched over the first ovary. If there are no ovaries in the axils of the first three leaves, then the entire second-order shoot is removed. For better illumination of cucumber lashes, they are directed vertically, organizing the pulling of the cords. Scourges of cucumbers are tied to them. On a vertically arranged wire, the shoots themselves will curl.

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Cucumbers planted in a greenhouse require competent care in the form of:

• abundant watering once or twice a day;
• spraying plants with warm water;
• applying organic and mineral fertilizers every ten days;
• forming into one or two stems by pinching;
• adding earth with a layer of two to three centimeters on the exposed roots of cucumbers.

An experienced summer resident will not be afraid to transplant elongated cucumber seedlings in a greenhouse, having received a harvest of zelents in an early period.

Is it possible to plant overgrown seedlings in open ground

In order for the elongated cucumber seedlings to take root, it is necessary to carry out the procedure for placing in open ground, observing the rules:

• If the seedlings are in peat pots, then you don't have to worry about how to plant overgrown cucumber seedlings. It is placed in the well along with the container. When removing seedlings from the container, care must be taken to ensure the integrity of the plant roots.
• In the holes, before planting cucumbers, add humus, thoroughly mixing it with sod soil. The prepared wells are moistened. This must be done in advance.

• Seedlings are planted in the morning or evening. It is better to transplant cucumber seedlings into open ground on cloudy days.
• After the cucumbers are planted in the ground, they are watered.
• After three or four rows of cucumbers, it is recommended to sow corn, peas in two rows. These crops are needed to increase the temperature of the soil and air, to protect cucumbers from wind and frost.

If the cucumber seedlings do not take root well, you need to know what to do with this. The rules of care include procedures known to every summer resident:

• Cucumbers are watered abundantly in the first week after planting. Reduce watering frequency before flowering. After the ovaries have formed, moisturize more often, wetting the plants from above. On hot days, moisten the soil in the morning and evening. The water is heated to a temperature of 20-25 degrees. The topsoil is moistened to a depth of five to eight centimeters.
• Long-leaved types of cucumbers are pinched over the third - fourth real leaf. This leads to the appearance of side shoots and the formation of a large number of female flowers, and then fruit.

• Top dressing is organized with a mullein, diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 8. Of the mineral fertilizers, preference is given to ammonium nitrate (30 grams), superphosphate (25 grams) and potassium salt (10 grams), diluted in ten liters of water. The second time is fed using a solution of ammonium nitrate and potassium salt.
• On hot days, cucumbers are shaded with shields of twigs and shingles for three to four hours.
• After exposing the lower part of the stem, the cucumbers rejuvenate. Having folded the lower part of the bare stem into a ring, leave it for a week and then cover it with earth. For feeding cucumbers with carbon dioxide, heaps of fresh manure are laid out next to the beds.

You can get a vegetable harvest from overgrown seedlings if you know what to do when pulling out shoots.