How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

The creeping stalk of a cucumber in any case requires support. Being in limbo, the plant receives more air and light. These features of the culture can be successfully used to arrange a green summer “Christmas tree” on your site, and even save space by redirecting the stems to grow up. How to create a beautiful cucumber pyramid and care for it, we will tell in our article.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Advantages and disadvantages

Planting herringbone cucumbers involves the creation of a cone-shaped bed. When it is overgrown with fresh green foliage, it looks like a Christmas tree, and flowers and fruits play the role of decorations. This method of growing cucumbers has its supporters and opponents, as it has not only advantages, but also disadvantages. Let’s start with the positive aspects of creating a garden bed with a pyramid.

  • The design does not imply any cash costs, it is built simply, from improvised materials.
  • Evenly distributed and tied lashes of cucumbers receive a lot of light and air. The cone-shaped bed is well ventilated, which means that the plants will not be affected by bacteria, fungus and mold.
  • Unthickened, beautifully laid lashes, enclosed in a pyramid, form an easily accessible space. The gardener has quick access to any point in the garden, which makes it easier to care for it.
  • A bed directed upward yields three times more than the same plot with cucumbers grown horizontally.
  • The shadow created by the plants inside the cone has its pros and cons. The positive aspects include the long-term maintenance of moisture inside the flower bed, which makes it possible to water less often.
  • “Herringbone” of cucumbers becomes a beautiful decorative element of a suburban area.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Now let’s talk about the cons.

  • The shade inside the cone that the plants create saves on watering, but it is in such conditions (warmth and dampness) that fungi and bacteria like to multiply.
  • In addition, the hill itself casts a shadow on neighboring crops.
  • Some of the fruits will hang down inside the pyramid, and getting to them will not be easy.
  • The slide may not meet the expectations of the owners in the ideal overgrowth of its surface. On the south side, it is likely to be lush and blooming, and on the north – rare and with bald spots.

Those who are not afraid of the minuses and are delighted with the pluses can start organizing a Christmas tree and plant cucumbers in an unusual way, and we will tell you how to do it.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Prepare

Before growing cucumbers in the garden in the form of a “Christmas tree”, you must first build this structure by choosing the most suitable place for it on the site.

Site Selection

It should be borne in mind that cucumber culture does not like drafts and strong winds. By installing a cone in a lowland, one can expect constant flooding during rains and, as a result, leaching of nutrients from the soil, rotting of the root system. And by choosing a hillock to install the pyramid, you will doom cucumbers to constant burnout from an excess of sun.

Seedlings and young leaves of the plant develop well in lit areas, but excess direct sunlight is contraindicated for fruits. The best option would be to create diffused lighting. If it is difficult to find such a place, it can be organized using a garden canopy made of patchwork fabrics with ventilating slots or from a special mesh.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Installation of the support structure

When a place is chosen, a support should be installed in the center of the site. At the top of the post, screw in 3-5 screws to tie the guide twine. Draw a circle around the support. Prepare stakes or hooks made of strong thick wire in advance. They should be evenly (in a circle) stuck with the long end into the ground, and the hooks themselves should be used for the lower twine garter. Ropes fixed at the top of the pole must be lowered and attached to stiff wire guy wires. Screwed screws will help the twine not to move down the support.

It turned out a pyramid, along the twines of which the growing lashes of cucumbers will soon begin to rise. The dimensions of the cone in diameter can be 1-2 m, and in height reach from 120 to 200 cm.

The larger the “hut”, the more seedlings can be planted and the more abundant the harvest will be.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Seed and seedling preparation

To increase the yield before planting in the soil, preliminary seed preparation is carried out.

  • Calibration. It is necessary to sort out empty and damaged seeds. If you lower the grains into a saline solution, empty specimens will float, they will only have to be collected and separated from high-quality seed.
  • Prevention diseases. Before planting, the seeds must be kept in a weak solution of manganese for 20 minutes, then washed. The procedure will help get rid of pathogenic bacteria.
  • Activation growth. For rapid development, the seed is dipped in preparations that stimulate growth. They are purchased in specialized stores. From folk remedies, aloe juice, diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 6, is suitable.
  • Hardening. Seeds can be kept in the refrigerator for a day, after placing them in a canvas bag.
  • Germination. Spreading the seeds on a wet napkin in a warm place, you need to give them the opportunity to hatch, then they will begin to grow more actively in the soil.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

If cucumbers are planted with seedlings, it is necessary to start growing them a month before planting the planting material in the ground.

First, prepare the soil by adding 2 parts of a mixture of peat and humus, 1 part of sawdust to it. Then ash and nitrophoska are introduced into the ground (50 g per bucket of soil). Prepared soil is filled with small containers for planting seeds. It is better if these are peat cups, with which the sprouts will go into open ground. Water the seedlings once a week. After the appearance of the second leaf, top dressing is carried out. To do this, dilute 1 tsp. nitrophoska in 1 liter of warm water.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

How to plant?

Landing in open ground is carried out if the temperature outside is stable at +18 degrees and above. Seeds or seedlings should be planted in a circle made cone beds, keeping a distance between sprouts of 30-40 cm. Near each peg (hook) with a stretched twine, two seeds or sprouts are planted, from different sides of the stretch. Soon the stalks of cucumbers will rise along the twine to the top of the makeshift Christmas tree.

Before planting, a little dry grass and humus are laid at the bottom of the holes. Then this “pillow” is sprinkled with a small layer of black soil or nutrient soil. The pits are slightly moisturizing. Planting material is lowered into the prepared holes and sprinkled with earth. When everything is ready, the bed is watered.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

In order for the hill to please with a bountiful harvest in the future, you need to do the following:

  • organize diffused lighting, protect cucumbers from direct sunlight;
  • protect from wind and drafts;
  • do not allow the soil to dry out;
  • before planting, prepare fertile soil with a small percentage of nitrogen.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Care

To achieve a high yield, you cannot plant cucumbers and forget about them. During growth, flowering and fruiting, they require some care. It consists of the following steps.

Garter

Growing stems do not need a mandatory garter, they can simply be braided around the twine, setting the direction of growth. The plant itself clings well with antennae to prepared supports. You will only have to tie up too heavy lashes with a large yield load.

By the way, when the shoots reach the top of the cone, they should be pinned down, stopping growth, or redirected down the beds.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Watering

It is enough to water the Christmas tree once a week in the early morning so that the earth has time to take water before direct sunlight hits it. During flowering, the plant needs little watering, it can be reduced, and during fruiting, on the contrary, it is necessary to increase the frequency of irrigation. Cucumbers, in order to actively pour and become juicy, need an abundance of moisture. After watering, the soil is loosened, giving oxygen the opportunity to penetrate to the roots of the plant.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

During the budding period, cucumbers should be fed with mineral compounds.

You can prepare the following mixture: to 10 liters of warm water add 1 teaspoon of potassium sulfate, superphosphate, urea. The liquid must be carefully poured under the roots of a young plant.

When the fruits are tied, you can start organic feeding: mix 30-35 g of nitrophoska with 200 g of dry mullein, add the mixture to 10 liters of water.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Treatment

Cucumbers, like any other crop, can suffer from diseases or be attacked by pests. Most often they are affected by peronosporosis, powdery mildew, cladosporiosis. In the first two cases, fungicides are used, and in the last case, benzimidazole antifungals are used.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

Growing cucumbers in a vegetable garden according to the “Christmas tree” principle is no different from planting seeds in a circle, from the usual cultivation of a crop in a vertical way. Timely watering and top dressing will allow you to collect several tens of kilograms of delicious crispy fruits from one hill.

How to grow herringbone cucumbers?

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Anna Evans

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