How to properly plant cucumbers for seedlings: rules for sowing seeds at home

To get an earlier harvest of cucumbers, you can apply various agricultural techniques. One of which is the preliminary sowing of cucumber seeds for seedlings at home, which allows you to get greens 1-2 weeks earlier than with direct planting in the ground.

But before proceeding with the procedure, you must familiarize yourself with the rules for its implementation.

Content

1 How to pick a good variety of cucumbers
2 How to properly plant cucumbers for seedlings
3 How to properly care for cucumber seedlings before planting in the ground

How to pick a good variety of cucumbers

Note! The site already has a number of detailed review articles on the most popular and best varieties of cucumbers:

How to properly plant cucumbers for seedlings

Sowing seeds for seedlings requires certain practical skills and strict adherence to all recommendations. This is due to the fact that a cucumber is a rather capricious vegetable that will not tolerate ignoring the rules of its planting and further cultivation. Therefore, before starting work, you need to familiarize yourself with the basic rules of sowing and seed preparation, as well as determine the timing of their planting.

By the way! Cucumbers are very common planted with seeds directly into open ground without preliminary sowing for seedlings, even in regions with a relatively short summer (in the Moscow region, Leningrad region).

When to sow for seedlings: optimal timing

Note! The site already has a detailed article about how to correctly calculate the timing of sowing cucumbers for seedlings, including indicated favorable days for planting in 2020 according to the lunar calendar.

Presowing seed preparation

By the way! There is also a separate material on the methods of processing cucumber seeds before sowing.

What soil is suitable

The substrate for sowing cucumbers for seedlings must be mandatory light (loose) and nutritious, since it will require regular watering of the plants, excluding stagnation of water. Therefore, for planting, you can buy in the store a ready-made universal soil for growing seedlings of vegetable crops, and even better, special for seedlings of cucumbers (also suitable for zucchini, squash and pumpkins, i.e. for all pumpkin crops).

Of course, a suitable soil mixture can be cook yourself by mixing components in a certain proportion.

For example, a recipe like this would work:

sod land - 25%;
leafy soil or peat - 25%;
humus - 25%;
sawdust (only rotted) or sand, vermiculite (in other words, any baking powder) - 25%.

Or:

humus - 50%;
garden land or peat - 25%;
loosen (sand or sawdust) - 25%.

Important! A week before sowing seeds, it is necessary to decontaminate the soil.

For this, the soil needsbake in the oven (a couple of hours at a temperature of about 70 degrees), and also spill with a solution potassium permanganate deep pink, or use a more powerful drug Fitosporin (according to instructions).

What containers to plant

Cucumbers form a superficial root system with numerous thin processes, damage to which leads to long-term recovery of seedlings. Therefore, when growing cucumbers with seedlings, you need plant seeds immediately in separate containers, which will reduce stress during further transplanting into open ground.

The most acceptable types of containers and containers for planting cucumbers for seedlings:

Plastic cassettes. This type of container has recently been gaining more and more popularity among gardeners. Cassettes are made up of individual cells that are interconnected. You can pick up containers of different volumes and sizes, based on further placement on a windowsill or rack. If necessary, cassettes can be purchased complete with a lid and a pallet, which is very convenient. The thickness of the material from which the containers are created allows you to release the root of the seedling without much effort, and, if necessary, it can be cut with ordinary scissors. The disadvantage of cassettes is that they quickly break and bend in case of further transportation of seedlings.

Peat cups (pots). Ideal for growing cucumbers in seedlings, as they allow planting without releasing the roots from the container, that is, without stressing the plants. But when grown in peat cups, an additional irrigation pan will be required, since moisture will evaporate very quickly from the containers. When transplanting into the ground, it is necessary to slightly crush the container, which will accelerate the decomposition of the shell and will not interfere with further root growth.

Peat tablets. They are distinguished by their balanced composition and give quick friendly shoots of cucumbers.But the capacity will very quickly become small, and therefore it will be necessary to carry out further transplantation of seedlings, which is not always possible and even less recommended. In addition, the moisture in the tablets evaporates quickly, so when growing in them, it is necessary to water the crops often and make sure that their roots do not dry out.

Plastic pots and glasses. The most popular type of container for planting, but the inconvenience is that you need to make drainage holes yourself. For cucumbers, you should choose containers of at least 300 ml, and preferably 500 ml, so that the plants have enough space and land for full growth. But when watering, an additional total capacity (pallet) is required. When planting, the containers can be cut with scissors so as not to disturb the root.

Planting algorithm: instructions for direct sowing of seeds for seedlings

Step-by-step instructions for sowing cucumbers for seedlings at home:

put drainage on the bottom of the planting containers with a layer of 1 cm, which will allow excess water to exit freely or it is imperative to make drainage holes;
fill the planting containers with the substrate 1/2 (for the subsequent adding earth - in case of pulling), or for 2/3 (without dripping);
pour abundantly with warm water;
compact the soil and level;
decompose seeds seeds;

Advice! Many gardeners put 2-3 seeds at once in order to subsequently choose the strongest ones, and get rid of the rest (thin out).

sprinkle with a layer of earth 1-1.5 cm and compact again;

Or, in advance, make depressions of 1-1.5 cm and spread the seeds in them.

well moisten the soil from above with a spray bottle.
cover the crops with plastic wrap or a transparent lid, and then put them in a dark and warm place with a temperature of + 22-26 degrees (maximum up to 28-30 degrees). In 2-5 days, friendly sprouts will appear.

Video: the easiest and easiest way to sow cucumbers for seedlings

How to properly care for cucumber seedlings before planting in the ground

Advice! About, how to grow cucumber seedlings at home read more in this separate article.

Also the site has separate material on the timing and rules for planting seedlings in a greenhouse and open ground.

Strong seedlings of cucumbers will certainly delight you with their fruits ahead of time, to the envy of neighbors. You just need to timely and correctly sow cucumber seeds for seedlings.

Video: growing cucumber seedlings - sowing rules