Features of growing cucumbers in the open field in the Moscow region
Since cucumbers are a fairly popular crop in our gardens, it is worth considering the peculiarities of caring for this vegetable in the climate near Moscow. Consider how to plant seedlings correctly, describe the main points of caring for a vegetable crop in order to end up with abundant and tasty fruits of our labor.
Content
Where and how cucumbers grow better
Their seeds are sown next to cabbage, peas in the ground, but they should not be planted near potatoes. It is advised to plant beans or corn on all sides of the beds with cucumber bushes. Beans will protect young plants, and corn will protect grown crops.
The beans perfectly tolerate cold weather, they are planted even earlier than cucumbers in 2 rows, keeping a distance of 0.15 m between the rows. Corn is planted at the same time as cucumbers - in 2 rows. Better yet, sow beans and corn across the winds.
To understand how to grow a crop, you need to know that seeds are sown in the place where tomatoes, peas, peppers, cabbage, and onions grew before.
In order to grow cucumbers, in no case should they be planted after beans, carrots, as these crops suffer from white rot, which also affects cucumbers.
Landing requirements
For sowing cucumber seeds, choose a well-lit area with light soil, without northerly winds.
You can buy cucumber seedlings and plant them, but do not forget that cucumbers grow normally at a temperature of 18 - 26 ° C. If the temperature drops to 15 ° C, then the culture slows down. If the temperature drops below 10 ° C, then the cucumbers will absolutely stop growing, diseases will appear on the roots and root collar, and then the culture will die.
When the temperature drops to 10 ° C, cover the plants with a film.
When to plant cucumbers in the Moscow region? The seed planting dates are from May 20 to June 20.
Soil preparation
Planting cucumbers in open ground is done in 5 ways:
- in trenches;
- in beds insulated with straw, grass;
- in warm beds of manure;
- on artificial slopes;
- growing cucumbers in a barrel.
Digging a trench
In autumn, dig a strip 0.7 m wide and 0.2 m deep. In the center of the strip, dig a trench 0.3 m deep. At the bottom of the trench, pour 15 cm of chopped straw, fallen leaves, cut weeds, peat. At the beginning of spring, add a layer of 0.25 m of fresh manure to the trench. Pour boiling water over the manure, adding potassium permanganate to the boiling water. Sprinkle earth on top.
Warm bed
In autumn, on 1 m² of land, throw 6 - 8 kg of rotted manure. Dig to the depth of the shovel - this is about 30 cm.
Fold the top layer of the earth to the side, pour the cut grass, chopped straw, fallen leaves, sawdust on the bottom.Fill with soil so that the height of the bed is 0.5 m. Pour boiling water over, sprinkle with crushed chalk and ash on top. Cover with foil, let it rest for 24 hours. Next, fill in the peat, humus and sawdust substrate. Cover with foil again and leave until spring.
Warm bed of manure
In the fall, pour a layer of soil onto the pile of manure, and then cover with burlap and plastic wrap - then the manure will not freeze during the cold season. In very early spring, when there is still snow, remove the burlap and film.
Dig up the manure so that oxygen is supplied to it, then it will heat up itself to a temperature of + 60 ° C due to the active reproduction of bacteria. You can also put hot bricks in a heap.
When the soil thaws, then a layer of earth is removed from the garden to a depth of 40 cm. A layer of 10 cm of sawdust is poured down, watered with a solution of carbamide, and manure is placed on top. It takes almost 1 ton of manure per 3 m². Then the previously removed layer of fertile soil 0.25 m thick is placed on it and the ground is covered with black polyethylene.
Artificial slope
You can plant cucumbers in artificially poured slopes. Pour the soil so that on the north side there is a steep steep slope with a height of 0.2 - 0.25 m, and on the south side there is a gentle slope. Make a bed 1 m wide. Dig shallow holes in the middle of the bed. We sow seeds in them.
Barrel
Very early in the spring, 1/3 of the branches are put in the barrel, pieces of rags, dried roots. Then another 1/3 weeds, vegetation remnants, potato peel, onion husk.
Then put the barrel in the sun and leave for 3 weeks, water it. "Baikal EM" accelerates the decay of weeds. Add 100 ml of "Baikal EM" to a ten-liter bucket with settled water and pour it into a barrel.
From May 1, a 20 cm layer of soil is poured from humus, leaf and ordinary soil. The earth is watered with a boiling pinkish solution of potassium permanganate. 10 seeds are placed in a barrel. The barrel is covered with foil before you see the first foliage. Barrel sprouted rudiments can be protected by covering them with plastic bottles.
The most suitable varieties of cucumbers
It is required to plant cucumbers in open ground in the Moscow region, selecting varieties according to the following principles:
- Better to plant early ripening cucumbers.
- It is preferable to select those that pollinate themselves, since if the weather is cool, then few pollinating insects fly.
- Choose varieties that do not respond to sudden changes in temperature conditions, giving high yields with a lack of light and a lack of heat, with thickened plantings.
- They are immune to diseases and are poorly affected by pests.
To obtain a magnificent harvest of cucumbers in the Moscow region, it is advised to plant 3 - 7 varieties per garden bed, alternating parthenocarpic (self-pollinated) and pollinated by all sorts of wasps and bees.
In open ground, seeds are planted in the Moscow region:
- varieties: Vyaznikovsky, Alex, Urozhainy 86, Opera, Melodies, Union, Angelina, Nezhinsky local, Ajax, Competitor, Irresistible 40, Golubchik, Altai early, Atlantis;
- hybrids: Spring, Magnificent, Masha, MOVIR, German, Sovkhozny, Claudia, VIR 505, Farmer, Annushka, Blizzard, Stork, Zhuravlenok, By the pike's command, Nightingale, Petersburg Express, Blizzard, Cellar, Santana, Libelle.
Planting seeds
Before planting cucumbers, the seeds are placed in a gauze bag. Place the bags near the radiator. Warm up for 2 months. The best temperature is 20 ° C.
Seeds of cucumbers are soaked 3 - 6 days before placing them in the soil and left in a warm room until they are pecked. The seeds are hardened to increase the future yield and faster ripening of cucumbers:
- First, the seeds are kept in the heat for 6 hours, then 6 hours by putting them in the refrigerator.
- The seeds are kept for 2 days at a temperature of 2 ° C.
- When the seeds hatch, they are kept for 1 day at a temperature of 1 ° C.
If you bought seeds in a multi-colored shell, then they do not need to be wetted and germinated.
To guarantee sprouts sprout, they take 3 types of seeds: completely dry, already germinated and soaked in water. If you sow germinated seeds, then they will sprout before everyone else, but they can die with a return frost. Seeds soaked in water are moderately frost-resistant, but emerge early. Dry seeds are the most resistant to frost, but, of course, sprouts from them will appear much later.
They are planted by making holes with an indent of 0.6 m from one another, if you make 1 row. If you plant in 2 rows, then keep a distance of 0.8 - 0.9 m between holes and 0.4 - 0.5 m between rows. Sowing cucumbers in open ground with seeds is done by placing seeds of all three types into the holes to a depth of 1 - 2 cm. Pour moistened soil on top, press it a little.
Do the beds need to be watered after placing the seeds in the ground? No, since water will displace air, and oxygen will not flow to the seeds.
Before sprouts grow, you can add peat mulch. When mulching, the ground cools down more slowly, near the ground the air is warmer due to the dark color of peat, because of this it warms up faster by the sun, moisture dries out more slowly. Or cover the bed with polyethylene film, then a crust will not form on the ground. If the sun is all day long, then grass and straw are scattered over the film. When the first shoots appear, the film is removed.
Care
Consider the main stages of caring for a vegetable.
Thinning
The subtlety of caring for the bushes - when sprouts appear, they are thinned out, pinching off. Do not pull out seedlings with roots, as this can damage other bushes.
The first time the seedlings are thinned out when 1 real leaf grows. Leave 1 sprout every 0.1 m. The second - when the third true leaf appears, a distance of 0.5 m is made between the sprouts.After thinning, the bushes are spud a little, then moisture will not remain for a long time near the sprouts, and they will not rot.
Top dressing
Since April 29, seedlings are watered with solutions from "Sudarushka" and "Bucephalus". In the spring, for a more intensive growth of leaves, planting cucumbers is watered with a solution of carbamide, diluting 2 tbsp. spoons in a ten-liter bucket of water.
When growing bushes, they are fertilized once a week - this is done after watering. For feeding, you can dilute 1 part of chicken or rabbit droppings with 5 parts of water or take 1 part of manure and 5 parts of water, leave for a couple of days. Then add another ten-liter bucket of water to each liter of infusion. Pour 1 - 2 liters under the bush.
You can feed it every other time, first with a mullein, then with a solution of fertilizers "Agricola", "Effekton", "Energen".
From mid-summer, the bushes are fed with a solution of 3 tbsp. tablespoons of potassium nitrate and a ten-liter bucket of water.
Watering
Water cucumbers in the open field with warm, settled water three or four times a week. Water under the root so that the droplets do not fall on the stems and leaves, otherwise the plant may get sick with peronosporosis. In the morning, spray the bushes from a spray bottle, pouring a small amount of warm water into it. Water more often if it is not raining. In hot weather, hose down. Loosen the ground after watering or rain.
To attract pollinating insects, make 1 tbsp syrup when blooming. tablespoons of honey and 0.5 liters of water and spray it. You also need to know that in order to attract insects, coriander seeds should be planted in the aisles in early spring.
Formation
For the prevention of diseases due to fungi grow cucumbers on a trellis... By growing cucumbers on a trellis, a lot of space is saved. On the garden bed, drive in the posts, keeping a distance of 0.7 - 0.8 m, tie wire trellises to them, and make the indent between the bushes 0.3 - 0.4 m.
You can replace the trellis wire with a wooden rail, which you can nail to the support posts at the top - then the rail will not sag like a wire.
When growing, pinch the stem over 4-5 leaves. This is done in all varieties of cucumbers, in addition to hybrid and Altai early ones. When pinched, the stem will stop growing in length, but lateral shoots begin to grow, female flowers bloom on them.
Branches that grow on lateral branches pinch over the first cucumber... Cut off dried and yellow leaves. All this is done in the morning, so that the resulting media dry up by evening.
When to harvest
The cucumbers, which are planted in the Moscow region, begin to be harvested at the end of July. From grown bushes cucumbers harvested early in the morning 1 time in 2 - 3 days, then - every other day. In the morning, the cucumbers are carefully torn off from the grown lashes, trying not to pull the lashes. You can not shift the whips when collecting fruits. Do not leave large yellow cucumbers on the bushes, otherwise the bush will receive a signal that the seeds have grown and it is time to stop growing.
Growing cucumbers in the open field in the Moscow region has its own nuances, but in any case, planting requires watering, fertilizing, pulling out weeds, and loosening the soil after each watering and rains.
