Hi gang, it was my first year gardening last year and I had very little joy with planting cucumbers from seed. This year is totally different though, 12 seeds and 12 seedlings!
Firstly i wanted to share my progress as I’m well happy! But i also wanted some advice on next steps so I don’t end up killing then when I transplant. They’ve been in since the start of March and I plan to grow them using trellis, some in the ground and some in containers. When is best to plant out? After the last frost?
Any help would be appreciated. I’m from the UK (Midlands).
by WetYellowCactus
2 Comments
Cucumber transplants don’t do well. Any cucurbit plant won’t do well being transplanted like melons pumpkins squash zucchini cucumbers. And since these are started indoors they will have to be hardened off. On ur last frost date I would just do the exact same thing you did to start them indoors but do it outside where they’re in the sun and put them into the ground as soon as you see them start to sprout up. These plants hate root disturbances and they will stop growing for about 2 weeks. In your case having these indoors and then having to harden them off for a week and then transplanting might grow to many roots and you’ll experience transplant shock even after hardening them off.
Basically cucumbers will grow faster if you plant them outside, not indoors. If you did them indoors and outdoors the indoors 4 weeks before and the outdoor during ur last frost the outdoor ones would be about 2x bigger than the ones you started 4 weeks early indoors in just 2 weeks
You’ve started them a little too soon. Do you have grow lights to keep them under? If not you’ll need to restart them closer to your last frost date.