When to sow cucumber seeds uk
About
On this gardening page, you will find out when to sow cucumber seeds UK, how to grow cucumber and how to care for your plants. We hope with these gardening tips and advice you will be able to grow cucumbers successfully.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
When to plant cucumber
Do you want to know when you can sow, plant and harvest cucumber. Here in this table you will be able to get your answers of when you can do these jobs. Just remember it also depends on the weather in your area. Find When sow cucumber seeds UK.
| Sow | March to May |
| Plant | May to July |
| Harvest | July to October |
Types of Cucumber
There are many types of cucumber that you can try growing. Here are all the types of cucumbers that you can try:-
- Persian Cucumbers
- Lemon Cucumbers
- Kirby Cucumbers
- Gherkins
- Garden Cucumbers
- English Cucumbers
- Armenian Cucumbers
Where to grow
When you are deciding where to grow cucumbers you need to think about somewhere that has lots of sun for most of the day, good moisture and great soil (using compost will be ideal). Some varieties of cucumber can be grown outdoors but the ideal place to grow cucumbers is in a greenhouse or a poly tunnel. When growing cucumbers indoors the best place to grow them is in grow bags or in 10 litre pots, make sure they have holes in the bottom for drainage.
How to sow
There are many ways to sow cucumber seeds and when to sow them. If you are wanting a long crop of cucumbers you need to start your seeds off in the late winter or in early spring, this way they will crop for longer. You will obviously need to start them off in a heated greenhouse. For the seeds to germinate the temperature will need to be around 22 degrees warm.
If you have not got a heated green house you can start them off at the end of March this should be sufficient.
To sow cucumber seeds you can either sow into seperate plant pots or in a seed tray. My personal preference is to sow into seed trays then you can pot on the best ones that grow.
First you need to get a seed tray and fill half full of multi-purpose compost. You can then sprinkle your seeds evenly across the compost. Cover the seeds with another layer of compost and water. To keep them warm and moist I put a layer of cling film over them. This will save keeping them watered plus it will keep it warmer. When the cucumber seeds germinate you can remove the cling film. Just remember to keep watering them.
If you are starting them in plant pots, plant one seed per plant pot. and again you can cover with cling film.
How to plant
Once the seeds have germinated in the seed tray and grown to a decent size with a couple of leaves on you can transplant them into separate plant pots to grow bigger.
When the plants have outgrown the small plant pots it’s now time to transfer them to their final growing place. You can either grow them in grow bags or in 10 litre buckets – just make sure their are holes in the bottom of the buckets for drainage. If you are growing them outdoors just make sure the soil has been improved with compost and general fertiliser.
Caring for the crop
When the cucumbers are in their final planting position it is key to make sure that you water them on a regular basis – remember cucumbers are mainly water. If the cucumber plants do not seem to be taking off you can feed them with liquid feed.
When you start to notice that the cucumbers are forming on the plant you can feed weekly with your tomato feed to help production.
How to harvest
When you think the cucumbers have got to a decent size you need to cut them off and harvest them. If you leave them on you will slow down others from growing. Obviously you will want to grow as many as possible.
Pests
The pests which can affect the cucumbers are spider mite and white fly. So try and control them the best you can.
Diseases
Cucumbers can suffer from powdery mildew which will turn all the leaves white and look dusty. Try and discard of the plants that badly affected. To try and limit the damage to plants you can use sulphur dust.
Varieties
There are many types of varieties of cucumber that you can grow. Here are some of our recommendations of the best cucumbers to try growing in your garden or allotment:-
- Masterpiece AGM – These are ideal for growing outside. They are a lot shorter than other cucumbers but a beautiful flavour
- Marketmore – This is an excellent variety to grow – heavy cropping ideal for polytunnel or greenhouse.
- Carmen – This variety are disease resistant. The fruit are usual sized cucumbers.
- Long Green Ridge – This variety is a great cropper. They are bumpy in appearance but fantastic for using in salads.
We hope that this page has helped you when to sow cucumber seeds UK. Now you can purchase your cucumber seeds and get growing them either in your greenhouse, poly tunnel or outside.
