Cucumber

The cucumber is an annual and dies off with the first frost. It cannot be overwintered, and you do not need to. Pull the plants out of the bed in autumn, keep seed dry and cool, and only plant out again after the Ice Saints (mid May).

In a home garden you propagate cucumbers exclusively from seed. For early harvests, raise the plants from early to mid April on a windowsill or in a heated greenhouse: put one seed about 2 cm deep into each small pot of seed compost and keep it constantly warm, at least 20 °C, ideally 22 to 26 °C. At this warmth cucumbers usually germinate in about 5 to 10 days; below 18 °C germination stalls. As soon as the seedlings have emerged, put them somewhere very bright so they do not become leggy. Plant the young plants out in the open ground only after the Ice Saints (mid May), when there is no longer any danger of night frosts, because cucumbers are very sensitive to cold. If you have no greenhouse, you can also sow directly outdoors: from mid May at the earliest, when the soil is permanently warm (above about 15 °C, better warmer). Place the seeds two or three together, about 2 to 3 cm deep, and later thin to the strongest plant. Raising true-to-variety plants from your own seed only works with open-pollinated varieties; F1 hybrids split in the next generation and do not come true. Cucumbers are also cross-pollinated: if you want pure seed, isolate or pollinate the flowers yourself and let the cucumber ripen fully, far beyond eating ripeness, before you scoop out the seeds and dry them. Seeds from salad cucumbers are not yet able to germinate.