Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and welcome everybody. I'm Jim Campetti along with
my wife Mary for our fourth podcast season, starting back, and we are
back for the twenty twenty four season. Hard to believe this is year four?
Is it? That is? I mean, it's it's been crazy,
it's been fun and we love to get to the chance to talk to gardening.
We've got a lot of great episodes coming up this year. We're going
to kick it off with today, which is one of my favorite topics.
Cucumbers and how to best plant them. You know a lot of people just
think I'm going to take them out, put them in just like any other
plant. There are some differences and we'll get into them today that can really
ensure a great crop of cucumbers and how you plant them and how you go
about that, and we're going to get into that. But since it's the
first of the twenty twenty four season, we want to remind everybody that can
always reach us via email at the Farm at ow garden dot com. And
you can sign up at simplegardenlife dot com to follow us on Facebook. That's
really the easiest way. We're going to post all of our newest articles on
there. Any of the podcast comes on, So go to simplegardenlife dot com.
And then also you can check out our Old World Garden Farms YouTube channel
where this year we'll post a lot more garden videos. We're adding some more
gardens here to the test garden, so pretty excited about that. So it's
a big year. It is going to be a big year. We got
lots going on the farm. We'll have an episode about the farm coming up
in a few weeks. We're excited for that when we've added a lot here
and we're gonna have a lot of events and the coming years, and really
excited when we get the chance to not just talk guarding but live it here
with other people with the farm we do. We get a lot of questions
from people about where the farm's located if they could come visit, so we're
excited to share it. Yeah, we are. So just to let you
know, we are in Quaker City, Ohio, so on the eastern part
of the middle section of Ohio. But like we said, well, that'll
be coming in a little bit. But let's get into our topic today,
which is planning and growing your best crop of cucumbers. It's really important planting
day. We talk about this with any crop, but with cucumbers it's huge,
and we're going to talk why and how you should plant your cucumbers instead
of just what a lot of people do. We'll get into this with transplants,
right, And I think it's probably the second most popular vegetable to put
in a garden. Well, it is, and for a lot of reasons.
I mean, think about all the things that we make from our cucumbers
and yeah, I mean there's a long, long list. Yeah, we
use our cucumbers all summer long. We can make so many different varieties of
pickles. We have dill pickles, hot and spicy pickles, bread and butter
pickles. We use the same things for relishes. But my favorite thing to
use for cucumbers, besides putting them in a salad, eating them fresh fridge
all summer long. And I love it too, it is a cucuvered onion
salad. Yeah you get that from your dad. I think your dad always
loved that and we had it too. But It's funny, Mary and I
have different versions. Now you like both, I do. I only like
one version. I like it with the vinegar style. I'm not a creamy
You've made me come over a little bit. I'll eat some, but I
have much more of that side. But we always have both. You do
a nice job when you're making it to make make sure we have each We
do, and I like that. I like the creamy sour cream mayonnaise version
that spice ups as cayenne pepper. But I do love the Italian viniagarette as
Oh yeah, it is good. So I mean as great as cucumbers are,
and Mary just talked about all the ways you can use them. They
really are, along with tomatoes, one of the most frustrating crops for gardeners
to grow. And you know they're just cucumbers are notorious. They give gardeners
fits for all kinds of different reasons, you know, whether it's trying to
get young seasons to take off, or every year we get questions like I
have flowers on my cucumbers, but they're not producing cucumbers. Well, we'll
talk about that today. That's frustrating too. You know, they are one
of the most finicky plants when it comes to pest and disease too, whether
it's you know, cucumber blight, whether it's the beetle getting them. They
also can succumb to weather pretty quickly in certain cases. But we're going to
start with what I think is probably one of the most important things that when
you you plant your cucumbers. We're going to hit four huge things today,
four secrets that we say like to grow cucumbers like crazy. But number one,
before we get to it, Mary, it's the question we're going to
answer. I think it's our question of the week, and I think it's
really important right now to just start with that. Right. This comes from
Andy Flowers from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He writes, I have the worst luck
with cucumbers. It doesn't matter if I try to grow my own transplants or
buy them. It always seem to just sit in the soil and die every
year I plant them. Help. I always love that. I love the
hope. Yeah, we get a lot of those, but it's good.
So number one and if, in my opinion, the most important thing you
can do to grow better cucumbers is not to plant transplants. Right, there's
no need to go out to a nursery or start your own seeds indoors to
go and plant your cucumbers in your garden. I mean, not only is
it less expensive, but to help your plants stay healthier and grow stronger and
faster. And here's why. You know, unlike tomato and pepper plants that
have extremely long seed to you know, purity times, they can be eighty
ninety one hundred days or more, so you need to start them insight.
They're also a bit stronger of a plant when you first take them out.
Cucumbers are not that way, and they have a very short seed to production
time. I mean some cucumbers, what fifty fifty to fifty five days they
can go from a seed to having fresh cucumbers that you're picking exactly. So
because of that, you don't have to start those plants four to six weeks,
as we always hear inside before taking them out, because when you plant
seeds, they're going to come up so fast, they're going to produce so
fast you're going to have cucumbers. But here's the funny part that I always
like to talk about, we've done this. This is not something that we
just say we've only planted from seeds we have planted for years. Yeah,
both we would go get transplants if we weren't here growing our own. Then
we grew our own, and we too struggled by taking them out. And
here's what happens with cucumber plants. You know, you have what maybe four
to six leaves, maybe ten if you're lucky on a cucumber transplant, you
take it out right, if you're lucky. If you're lucky, it's cool,
it's early in this growing season. Two things that cucumbers absolutely despise.
And you take them outside, even if you harden them off, and you
plant them in the soil. And what do they do? They sit?
They sit. Everybody talks about it. Right. They go through a bit
of shock, they do. Every plant does. But unfortunately for cucumbers that
shock is brutal to them. It can just lead them to kind of wilt
over, and the only few leaves they have in order to help with photosynthesis
and everything else, end up getting damaged. We've watched it before. They'll
turn yellow and you're not even it's not because of water. Maybe there's too
much moistury and soil. Because it's cool. They can't dry off, and
mildew and blight and all of those things take effect when that cool wet soil,
and it just spells trouble for cucumber plants. It is. And the
easiest way to explain it is that the roots when they're in the warm soil
inside, when you put them outside in the cool soil, they go through
a shock and they just sit there and they don't grow. They do.
So here's our answer, and we have done We've done experiment after experiment.
Now we just kind of laugh. You can take a transplant and put it
out, so we can usually plant here mid to late May. It just
depends. But we can plant those transplants and we can plant seeds on the
same day, or we can wait a week later and plant seeds, and
without fail, by the middle of June. What happens. The seeds do
much better. They do. And here's here's why that happens. So,
first of all, the seeds go in the ground, they have a chance
to sprout, they are acclimated to everything, and if you just wait a
little while till that soil warms up. That's the biggest mistake people make when
planting any type of spring vegetable crop like tomatoes, or when they're putting them
in for the summer, is they plant too early. Let that soil temperature
heat up a little bit. It's going to Germany quick. The seeds are
going to grow, there's no The roots have never been disturbed, right,
and the soil really needs to not only be warm, but needs to have
been dried out. If you had a really wet spring, the cucumber seeds
or transplants aren't going to do well. That's right. I mean, you
can't say that any better. And then once those seeds sprout up, those
roots have grown uninterrupted and they're down in there's not going to be the issues
that you have with a plant that's already existed and it kind of gets weak
and you can't power it up. So number one, right off the bat,
with queue seeds grow with seeds. It is just an easier way.
Trust me, try the experience yourself. Go out and buy a plant,
put your seeds in beside it, and andy rot us today. I said,
try this and it will work. Seeds have always given us a much
better and longer lasting crop and a healthier crop. So that's number one.
Let's take now a look at number two and you kind of hinted to this,
it's great soil. It's all about giving your cucumbers what they want.
And I mean, what's the biggest mistake a lot of gardeners make with cucumbers
is not amending the soil. Right. You have to provide some nutrients to
let those cucumbers grow big and strong, that's right, Rich, fertile and
loose soil, and that allows them to grow extensive roots. If that's soil
is hard or it doesn't have nutrients in, those roots can't grow anywhere.
Even if it's a seed, they can't get out. But if you have
good soil to start with, those roots grow out. And what does a
big root system do. It absorbs more nutrients. Right. And think about
the soil that you see that has cracks in it, hard soil, you
don't want that. You want loose, fertile soil, that's right. And
then the other thing is always plant your cucumbers even if you grow in a
bucket, if you grow in a raised bed, if you grow anywhere,
make a little bit of a mound wherever your plant comes out. And that's
important for the biggest reason is cucumbers don't do well when there's a lot of
moisture right around their stem. That's what happens in the early spring when you
put those transplants, and a lot of times so rod off. But that
little bit of a hill it allows that water to just escape out to the
edges and not hang around that stem. So how high should the mound be,
Well, you know, we like we like about twelve inches around in
diameter, and then as far as height, I mean two three inches.
It don't make a mountain, right, don't a volcano, you know,
just a couple. You don't want the water rolling off. You just want
that plant to sit a little higher. Or in this case, you're gonna
plant your seeds a little higher. So you know you do that. So
make your mound, and then here's where you really build it up. So
what we like to do is where that mound's gonna go, we loosen the
soil four to six inches underneath, we'll add in, you know, compost
we'll add in our worm castings and coffee grounds. And as far as how
much do we use, what you say, Mary, two to three cups
of composts for every planting hole, probably a quarter cup to a half a
cup of worm castings. We use a little more of those every year because
they're just magical and they don't overpower the soil. And then a couple of
tablespoons of coffee grounds. We put those all in, and then we talked
about it. Don't do this until that temperature gets above you know, sixty
degrees. Test your soil. Get it, get it, inexpensive soil meter,
go out how many times you know it can be seventy degrees for four
or five days, or eighty degrees. You go out and test that soil
early spring and it's fifty one degrees. We all get anxious in the spring
to get out there in our gardens and we want to get stuff in the
ground super early, but you really do need to wait for best results.
That's right, That's right, so you know. And then finally when we're
talking about building this, the other mistake that they kind of make when planting
is get it in a location it gets a lot of sun. I mean,
it needs a minimum of six to eight hours, but eight hours is
way better, tens even more, and morning sun's really the key here.
You can go I was going to hit on that, and you stole my
God, but that's good morning sun. And Severy's like, what's the difference
between morning and evening sun? They're both you know, less and not intense.
Well, cucumbers have a lot of mildew issues and they have a lot
of mold issues. And what causes that moisture on the leaves, Well,
they get wet overnight. That's just typical. You know, you have do
well, you get that early morning sun that dries off those leaves nice and
early in the morning, and you don't have to worry about those chances coming
on. So that's why you want a little bit more morning sun than anything
else. But again, they need a lot of sun during the day.
So all right, we've covered number one, which is plant with seeds.
We've covered number two, which is you know, build that soil up and
put a little mound in. We'll come back with number three and four after
we take a quick break, and we'll talk some more about how to grow
cucumbers like crazy this year. All right, we are back and excited to
have our first podcast of the season talking about cucumbers on how to plan it
for success. And as we said, we covered planting with seeds and we
covered how to fill that planting area with some serious power. Now it's all
about once you put those seeds in the ground, what do you need to
do. You need to melt from the start. And you're gonna hear us
say that with every single plant we talk about because it's so vital, and
in cucumbers it's even more. And you know it. Mulch helps with so
many things in a crop. So for cucumbers, it helps keep competing weeds
away and that's huge because those weeds cannot take resources then from your plants.
But it also helps to hold moisture in the soil to the root level,
not so much up around the plant because when you mulch, you don't want
to always mulch right up to the edge of the roots. But it helps
the soil from drying out so fast. And then really important in the spring
is it helps regulate soil temperature. So once that soil temperature heats up a
little bit and you get a super cold night, it's not going to lose
all its heat on one night, and in the summer when it's super hot,
it's not going to get all that heat during the day. So mulch
is critical for so many things with cucumbers. But it's a little different because
we're planting with seeds, right, and mulching actually starts on day one,
the day you plant your seeds, rather than waiting until the leaves come up
through the ground. Yep, when you first plant your seeds, you just
want to plat a place, a light coating of mulch on top of the
mound. So you want the light to SOI get to the soil. It's
a light though, what's like, what do you mean by light? Like?
How much would you put on them? Less than an inch? One
inch all around the mountain. You don't want any exposed dirt scene because you
don't want it to dry out, but you want the seed things to be
able to pop through the mulch. Yeah, so you put a four or
six inch coato mulch on, they're going to struggle a little bit coming through
that. So she's absolutely right. You know, one inch just something keep
weed seeds from blowing in and going there. So then what do you do?
So you wait, you water, You let those seeds sprout up,
Let them get a little bit of strength, don't start suffocating just as as
they grow up. Leave that inch on there. Let them get four or
five six inches tall, and then add a couple more inches about half of
it, you know, so it's a little bit thicker. Where do you
want to end up. You want to end up about four to six inches
deep of mult around your plant. Now, with cucumbers, straws great,
but I'll tell you this is one area. And we've really started talking about
this a lot the last few years. Pine needles are fantastic for cucumbers because
they also keep if you have a sprawling vine of cucumbers, they keep that
from touching bear soil, and they're pretty if you have to live around pine
trees are pretty easy to get. I guess we probably need to clarify too.
For those people that do the mounds of cucumbers and also have beare soil
throughout the whole row, you want to mulch that as well, because as
the cucumber vines grow, they're going to sprawl out onto that bare ground and
they need to be protected from touching that soil. I'm really glad you said
that, because up around the plants, I still like straw because it's a
little more it holds a little bit more heat in than pine neals do.
The pine needles around the edges are great because, like you said, it's
just there as they grow and to keep the fruit on. So whatever you
do, whether it's straw, whether it's you know, pine needles, you
can use shredded leaves. I like avoiding them mirror because they hold so much
moisture they can rot things out. I really like the straw of the pine
needles. But get that mulch down and then add to it as they grow,
and you know it's going to really help your crop long term, especially
keeping the cucumbers you do have growing safe from palms way. So that leaves
one last thing in our four huge things to do to grow crazy cucumbers.
And it's fertilized early and often. And this is where I think so many
people may make a mistake. They wait. They're scared about their plants,
so they wait a whole month before they ever give it any addition, no
power, and then they just power the heck out of it. They just
give it a big old full dose. So you really want to have great
success. Yes, you build some power in with worm castings and all that,
but you've got to fertilize often but lightly right once the seeds have sprouted,
they're growing for about two weeks. You really want to start using a
liquid fertilizer to feed them. That's right. So what are some of the
best choices If you happen to have a compost pile, make some compost t.
We have a great article on Simple Garden Life about how to make compost
team use it. It's pretty simple. You put some composts in a bucket,
you stir it a few times, and you're gonna end up with compost
t That's a great way to feed you know, every ten to fourteen days.
You don't need to weaken it. Feed your plants. It's going to
give them all that power worm casting teas another favorite. Yeah, it's a
great one. Okay, So you don't have these things, what can you
use? You can use good organic liquid commercial fertilizers. There's a ton of
them out there, and we have links on all of our sites to lots
of them. But here's the key with using them. You can't use them
at full strength. No, you really need to dilute them to be a
half strength with young seedlings. Yeah, and that the first few weeks.
So everybody's like, well, when should I When should I do this when
we like to wait till seedleans are three to four weeks old, I would
say that's the safe zone and give them their first light dose, and then
every two weeks after that, every ten to fourteen days, just give them
a light dose. Now it's liquid fertilizer, so you know, get it
on early in the morning. You don't have to worry about the sun burning
or anything like that. But a lighter dose over a long period is way
better than big doses once a month or once every other month, because you
give a big dose of nutrients at all once and what happens The plants just
grow like crazy. But at the expense of at the expense excuse me,
of producing blooms and fruit right. And what is the best way to fertilize
it is it right at the roots, is on the leaves. So it's
interesting with cucumbers, you know, liquid fertilizers soak through everything. I'm not
a big proponent with cucumbers in the spring of getting them all wet because you
have some some mil dose. So I like doing the soil right around them.
If it touches a little, it's going to be okay. It's not
going to hurt them. But yeah, I like that liquid. It goes
right in the ground, right up around the roots as they get bigger and
get into summer. Yes, you can get it because you can't even find
the cucumber plants half the time. You know what, I have a great
trick for that. I know you do. I figured i'd lead into that
for you. One big hit I've found extremely helpful, especially midsummer when the
cucumbers are growing like crazy. Is way early on when you first plant them
and you've thinned them down to two per mound, is put a skewer in
the ground, in the mound where the roots are going to be located.
That way, there is no question about where you should be fertilizing. Yeah,
so we have, Yeah, we have cucumber plants in our garden.
We have cucumber plants in our straw bales that we plant. We have several
tests in about three or four years ago. I don't know when you first
discovered this. I go out to the garden one day and I come in.
I'm like, hey, why are there a bunch of skewers all over
this area? She explained to me what she did, and I'm like,
well, that was brilliant, So we do it now all the time.
It's great for zucchini plants, cucumbers, anything that sprawls, it's excellent for.
So there you have it. Four tips and you know what, they're
so simple, but you got to get all four together. Is once you
know, use the seeds. Trust me that they'll catch up and they will
be there. I know. You see this big plant, You're like,
I don't want to start with seeds. It'll it'll beat them out. Make
sure you have good soil, use compus, use worm castings, you know,
coffee grounds, heck, even put some eggshell powder in anything to build
that nutrient value of the mound. And then you know, third, it's
really important to make sure that you know they're gonna get mulched and have the
mulch down. And then you got to fertilize them regular but lightly. I
mean that's the key. And then I mean we talk about it and it's
worked like a charm for us. Yeah, we do it in spring and
then we also do a second crop in midsummer. I know. So hey,
our first podcast. We're glad to be back. Always feel free to
email us if you have some ideas for podcasts or have questions, We get
lots of them every day. We may be featured on the podcast. You
might be featured. You might be like Andy Flowers today from Tulsa. So,
all right, Mary, I think it's time for our first time for
twenty twenty four. All right, remember whenever you do, find the fun
and gardening and grow something beautiful. All right? Until next week, everyone,
happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the Simple
Garden podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or most of your favorite
podcast apps. You can also head over to simplegardenlife dot com where you can
listen and read all of the show notes to every episode. And if you
have any questions, any ideas for show topics, or if you want to
share your favorite garden tip, email us at the farm at owgarden dot com.
Until next time, Thanks everyone,