2009 December | How to grow cucumbers

Archives for December, 2009

How to grow cucumbers – Part 1

Posted on Dec 29, 2009 under Growing cucumbers | No Comment

There is a lot of debate on the degree of difficulty of growing cucumbers. But in actuality, cucumbers are hands down the easiest vegetable to grow in your garden.

Some people “go by the book” in order to grow cucumbers. And that is OK. But from personal experience, cucumbers have never failed me in my garden. And let me tell you I have had a lot of failures.

Do you remember when you were growing up, your parents or grandparents probably had a vegetable garden? Do you think they went “by the book”? Of course not! There weren’t any books! They learned their growing techniques by previous generations. This is how I still do it.

I grow my garden each year with the concept that if it is meant to be, my garden will grow. No matter what you do, Mother Nature will decide. Each year is different. One year you may have too much rain and you won’t get much yield and the next may be too hot and burn everything up, no matter what you do. Mother Nature. Long time gardeners learn to roll with the flow.

Also, if you spend a small fortune on pots, fertilizers, growth hormones, a bug spray for this and a bug spray for that and any numerous expensive items, you have defeated your purpose in growing a healthy garden and saving money at the grocery store.

Each year I start the same way as anyone else, Till the garden, remove all grass and rocks, fertilize the whole area with a good manure fertilizer. I try not to use any chemicals on my garden. In my opinion, if you use chemicals, you are growing the same thing that is in the grocery stores! THAT is what I don’t want. I buy seeds. I choose a large pickling cucumber and a burpless variety. This gives me an abundance of cucumbers for pickling and a burpless variety that my family eats fresh. The burpless variety is just what it insinuates. It will not “talk back to you”!

As soon as I believe the last frost has come, I plant my cucumbers in a large circular area.

When planning your garden, make sure you have approximately a 3×3 circular area. Make this area mounded up in the middle. At the top of the mound, plant 3-5 seeds in 3 different spots. This will give you 3 plants at the top. I do not recommend small plants as they are too spindly and sometimes (especially in West Texas), in hotter climates, the heat and wind on new plants kills them. From seed, cucumbers will have a sturdier root structure to survive the heat and wind during early growth.

After planting, water frequently. Cucumbers take about 7-10 days to surface

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Posted on Dec 25, 2009 under Uncategorized | No Comment

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Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion, Revised: Growing Food & Flowers in Your Greenhouse or Sunspace

Posted on Dec 25, 2009 under Books Dvds and Software | 3 Comments

From Publishers Weekly
There’s something refreshing about a gardening book that doesn’t start out with soil. Smith ( The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse ) puts off the nitty-gritty subject until chapter nine. In the meantime, he covers such subjects as vegetables, flowers and herbs, light and temperature, ground beds and containers, and crop spacing and scheduling. This is not a complicated book; the operative word for it is “companion.” And while some of the advice is rather elementary, it does lead the reader painlessly through the steps and requirements of owning and gardening in a greenhouse. Undoubtedly, Smith’s role as a lecturer and host of a radio gardening show has also inspired him to write in terms simple enough for beginners. His saving grace is a quiet sense of humor that’s evident throughout the book–from his warnings about weather to his “biased opinion of hydroponics.” When Smith does get around to soil, he goes at it from the point of view of providing plants with a healthy root system–covering soil pH and nutrients and organic soil amendments in beds and pots. The extensive final chapter is devoted to everything that can go wrong–i.e., pests and diseases, for which Smith recommends mostly organic and biologic controls. As he points out, a “greenhouse or sunroom garden is probably the closest garden you’ll ever live with.” This is a book to live with. Illustrated. Garden Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
The director of Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and author of The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse ( LJ 4/15/82) has produced a practical, comprehensive guide to making the most of any greenhouse or garden room. Addressing almost every aspect except the actual construction, Smith covers the greenhouse environment (light, humidity, temperature), interior design (plant placement, fans, drainage), individual plants and their propagation, pollination, growth, and scheduling for flower or fruit production. There are chapters on problems, diseases, and insects, and lists of associations, mail-order suppliers, and sun averages during the year across the country. As a Wyoming gardener, he puts a good deal of emphasis on using the greenhouse in summer as well as in winter, but this is a useful, practical guide for readers in most of the continental United States.
- Molly Newling, Piscataway P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.