Fertilizer before sowing cucumbers. Top dressing of cucumbers: from preparing the beds to harvesting

Cucumbers are frequent guests on household plots, since the ripening period occurs within 50-60 days, and the fruiting itself takes place within a month.

The yield of cucumbers, of course, depends on the variety, it is better if the varieties are planted different for the possibility of consuming fresh vegetables for a long time.

For example, from the early varieties of cucumbers, Chernobrivets is considered the best, and from the middle and late ones: Nezhinsky, Borshchagovsky, Berlizovsky.

How to grow cucumbers

The yield of cucumbers directly depends on the correct selection of a place for planting them, the choice of planting method and soil fertilization. This will be discussed further.

Selecting a landing site

The best place for growing cucumbers are areas of the lower level, preferably flat or with a slope to the south. Cucumbers are planted shallowly, so it is quite difficult for a plant to select all the necessary nutrients from the depths of the earth. Be sure to apply fertilizers for cucumbers, otherwise you can not expect a large yield from them.

Soil fertilization

In general, for starters, it would be good to fertilize the soil with high quality. Fertilizers for cucumbers can be used both in ready-made purchased form and in natural form, for example, manure from a ratio of 1 sq.m. 6-8kg combined with 1 glass of ash. If fertilized with humus, then it is applied 4-5 kg ​​per 1 sq. m or use fine decomposed peat at the rate of 8-10 kg. The difference between such fertilizers for cucumbers is that manure is applied to the soil when digging a plot in the fall, and humus is already just before planting seedlings or. Be sure to feed cucumbers with phosphorus or potassium fertilizer, unless of course your soil has a sufficient amount of humus. The calculation is made as follows: per 1 sq.m. 1 cup ash or ½ cup potassium salt with 1/3 cup superphosphate.

Planting cucumbers

Growing cucumbers in general can be done in many ways.

• If you plant in the ground, then only when the frosts have already passed your area. Do not forget that the row spacing of early varieties of cucumbers reaches 70-90 cm, and late - 100-120 cm. if you plant cucumber seeds, then the sowing depth is 2-3 cm. distance of plants between themselves 12-15cm.
• If the planting of cucumber seeds is carried out by marking the area for early 90x90 cm, late - 100x100 cm, then where the intersection of the hole marker must be made with a diameter of 25-30 cm with the addition of fertilizers for cucumbers. You can use a mixture of mineral and organic. 8-10 seeds are sown in a prepared and fertilized hole.

Important: carry out the first top dressing of cucumbers two weeks after germination, the next top dressing during the formation of buds or with the beginning of flowering.

Cucumber is a tasty and healthy vegetable widely used in salads and preserves. It is classified as a rather capricious crop, so getting a rich harvest requires following several rules for choosing a place for planting and feeding them at various stages of cultivation. Fertilizing the soil before planting cucumbers is the key to their rapid growth and active fruiting, so you should pay special attention to the preliminary preparation of the soil in the garden allotted for them.

Fertilizing cucumbers before planting allows you to get excellent yields in the future

Autumn preparation for growing cucumbers in the open field

There are different opinions regarding the method of feeding the land before planting seeds, and each summer resident independently chooses which technologies to use to fertilize the land before planting vegetables. Most gardeners are of the opinion that it is best to fertilize the soil in the area intended for growing cucumbers in the fall, since it will take several months and a large amount of moisture to completely dissolve the mineral mixture used to saturate the soil with nutrients.

Top dressing for cucumber seedlings grown by the open method is prepared taking into account the quadrature of the site, based on the calculation that for each square meter of future beds, 3-4 buckets of rotted manure, 3-4 cups of wood ash and 80-100 g of nitrophoska are required. In autumn, the mixture is evenly applied to the area, which in the spring must be dug up and covered with a 15-centimeter layer of black soil.

Quail manure is applied to the garden in autumn

Spring preparation for growing cucumbers in the open field

If it was not possible to fertilize the soil in the fall, in the spring, at least a week before planting the seeds, at the site of the future cucumber bed, it is necessary to dig a groove about 40 cm deep, fill it with overripe manure, and cover it with a 16-cm layer of fertile soil from above, after which the soil must be leveled, form sides and cover with a thick film.

Only old manure can be introduced into the soil, since fresh mullein contains highly concentrated urea and nitrogen, which can burn young cucumber sprouts. When fertilizing the soil, it is important to follow the proportions recommended by farmers, since an excessive amount of litter on the site can provoke the formation of voids in cucumber fruits and reduce yields.

Mature hay, fallen leaves or sawdust are an excellent top dressing, which, when planting cucumbers, can replace manure and fully fertilize the land. Any of these substances is brought into the prepared groove, compacted and covered with fertile soil, on which beds can already be formed.

In cases where it is not possible to fertilize the soil in advance before sowing cucumbers, 3-4 days before planting the seeds, the earth must be sprinkled with ash mixed with superphosphate in the proportion: 2 tablespoons of fertilizer per 1 cup of ash, after which one bucket of humus is applied to the soil and rotten sawdust. Then the treated area is dug up and watered with 3-4 liters of humate solution prepared from 1 tbsp. tablespoons of the concentrate of this fertilizer and 10 liters. water. This amount of top dressing is enough to process 1 square. garden meters. After all the manipulations, the soil is covered with a film to warm the earth.

In addition to the feed made by the gardeners themselves, ready-made complex fertilizers based on phosphorus and nitrogen, such as ammophos or diammophos, are also used. Due to the high mobility in the soil and easy solubility, phosphorus-nitrogen growth stimulants can be applied immediately before planting cucumbers.

Diammophos is suitable for fertilizing cucumbers before planting

Planting cucumbers in a greenhouse

Most often, cucumber seedlings are planted in greenhouses, which have 4-5 true leaves. Usually such a number of leaves appear in the third week after the seeds hatch. Growing seedlings includes:

• seed heating;
• moisturizing and fertilizing cucumber seeds;
• cooling;
• placing seeds in pots.

Seeds intended for growing seedlings are kept for a month in a warm room at a temperature not lower than + 25 ° C, which will allow in the future to get a friendly shoot, earlier fruiting and a minimum amount of barren flowers. Before sprouting, heated cucumber seeds must be placed for an hour in a disinfectant solution made from 100 g of cool water and 30 g of garlic pulp.

After the destruction of pathogenic microbes, the seeds are folded for 12 hours in a tissue flap soaked in a nutrient solution, for the preparation of which you will need 1 tablespoon of water, 1 teaspoon of fine wood ash and the same amount of nitrophoska.

Then the grains are placed on a damp cloth, where they are kept for 2 days at a temperature of about + 20 ° C. When the seeds are swollen and slightly hatched, they are transferred to the refrigerator for 24 hours. These manipulations allow you to harden future shoots. Note that the seeds of hybrid varieties of cucumbers do not need pre-sowing preparation.

For growing cucumber seedlings, small containers 10-12 cm high are used, filled with a nutrient soil mixture. This substance is obtained from 1 part of decayed sawdust, 2 parts of humus and 2 parts of peat. 10 liters of blanks for the soil mixture are fertilized with 1.5 tablespoons of nitrophoska and 2 tablespoons of wood ash. 1 germinated seed is placed in 1 pea. Seedlings are watered at least once a week. The presence of intense lighting is a prerequisite for the normal growth of cucumber seedlings.

Before planting seedlings of cucumbers, the ground must be disinfected with potassium permanganate and sprinkled with phosphate fertilizer

You can plant seedlings in greenhouse soil 27-30 days after sowing. Immediately before planting, the sprout must be fertilized with a solution obtained by mixing 3 liters of water and 3 teaspoons of nitroammophoska or nitrophoska.

Cucumber shoots are planted in warm soil, previously watered with a weak solution of potassium permanganate and sprinkled with a teaspoon of any phosphate fertilizer. When planting between seedlings, it is necessary to maintain an interval of 30-35 cm. This distance is sufficient for the full growth of the cucumber root system.

Features of recharge of various types of soil

You can fertilize depleted or clay soil with a mixture made from 5-6 kg of mullein, 30 g of superphosphate, 18 g of potassium magnesia and 50 g of nitroammophoska, which can be replaced with 18 g of ammonium nitrate. All components of the fertilizer are thoroughly mixed and evenly applied to a planting area of ​​1 sq. m. Also, before planting cucumbers, 5 g of granulated superphosphate is poured into each meter of the garden.

For full development on sandy loamy soil, cucumber sprouts require additional fertilizers in the form of magnesium, therefore, when planting seedlings and seeds on such soils, the earth is enriched with appropriate organo-mineral mixtures.

Potassium magnesia - fertilizer for clay and depleted soils

Important to remember

For planting cucumbers, it is better to choose slightly darkened personal plots. The soil allotted for planting this crop should be thoroughly fertilized and warmed up with a film. Seeds must be pre-soaked and subjected to disinfection treatment in order to avoid the development of various diseases.

Remember, cucumbers "love" phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers, as well as abundant watering.

Record What fertilizer should be applied when planting cucumbers? first appeared SeloMoe.

Cucumbers are vegetables traditionally loved by Russians. They are certainly planted on the site by every self-respecting gardener. However, a rather whimsical culture requires careful care - just throwing seeds into the ground, periodically watering the plantings and harvesting a bountiful harvest will not work. Top dressing is a procedure that occupies an important place in the process of growing cucumbers.

Fertilizers are the key to a bountiful harvest

It is almost impossible to grow cucumbers without proper and timely top dressing.

Any soil in a garden with cucumbers, with the exception of black soil, needs additional fertilization to produce a crop. If the bushes are properly fertilized, the bushes will form much faster, the harvest can be harvested earlier, the fruiting period will be significantly “stretched”, resistance to diseases and pests will increase. You can even improve the taste and increase the number of fruits taken from one bush.

The root system of cucumbers is fibrous, superficial, goes into the ground by a maximum of 20 cm. The roots can “pull out” something useful only from the upper layers of the soil, quickly impoverishing them. Top dressing in the form of watering helps to compensate for the resulting deficit. Spraying with an emphasis on the underside of the leaf plate, which is responsible for suction, is also useful.

It is not necessary immediately after transplanting seedlings into the ground to rush to feed cucumber bushes. Give them 12-15 days to adapt, otherwise the root system will not be able to cope with several stresses at the same time.

Top dressing of cucumbers is carried out both with folk remedies and with mineral fertilizers - both methods have their adherents, but most often gardeners combine organic and mineral top dressing

Young seedlings are not able to absorb everything that enters the soil, most of the fertilizer will simply disappear. Wait until a few true leaves appear on the bushes. 15–20 minutes before the procedure, cucumbers must be watered with heated water, which has been settled for at least a day.

All cucumbers, regardless of variety, are in dire need of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. But there are other important trace elements as well. With due care, by the appearance of the bush and fruits, it is easy to determine what the plantings lack, and what fertilizers are applied too much.

Table: how to determine what cucumbers lack, what is excess

The need and frequency of feeding cucumbers is significantly affected by the fact of well-prepared soil in autumn or winter, the quality and characteristics of the soil.

When fertilizing cucumbers with superphosphate, remember that you need to take a simple one twice as much as a double one.

If the leaves turn yellow

Yellowed leaves on cucumber bushes are a problem that every gardener has faced. Before taking any action, you need to establish the cause. Otherwise, the measures you take may not only not bring the desired effect, but also significantly harm the plant.

The list of the most common reasons is quite wide:

• Wrong place. Cucumbers need sunlight and warmth, but the brightest midday rays should not fall on the plants.
• Weather. Sudden frosts, cold cloudy summer. The first especially affects cucumbers growing in open ground. Cover the landings with lutrasil, spunbond, similar breathable material.
• Too much watering. Keep an interval of 2-4 days, depending on weather conditions. In hot weather, spray the leaves daily. Use only warm settled water.
• Lack of moisture. The plant "saves" it by reducing the supply of leaves. To increase the humidity in the greenhouse, the walls are sprayed from the inside with a weak solution of chalk.
• Obstacles to pollination. In a permanently closed greenhouse, insect access is difficult. When buying, carefully study the description of the varieties - at least one must be self-pollinating. Honey plants planted nearby (dill, borage, hyssop), spraying the leaves with water with sugar or honey, a solution of boric acid, Ovary, Bud preparations will help to attract bees.
• Excess ovaries on the plant. Almost all the nutrients go to future fruits, leaves according to the residual principle. For harmonious development, no more than 20–25 future cucumbers are left on each bush at a time. Many modern hybrids are able to form 4-5 times more. Therefore, side shoots need to be pinched in a timely manner.
• Chlorophyll deficiency. This indicates pathologies in the development of the plant or a lack of the necessary minerals. Water the plantings with a solution of a complex liquid mineral fertilizer for cucumbers containing nitrogen, iron and magnesium.
• Excessive thickening of the bush. The lower leaves simply lack light. In principle, yellowness in this case is a normal phenomenon.
• Diseases and pests. In each case, yellowness manifests itself in different ways. Carefully inspect the plant for the presence of pests (the most common are aphids, germ flies, whiteflies, spider mites) or other signs associated with fungal, viral diseases. Then apply suitable insecticides or folk remedies.
• Root rot. The roots affected by the fungus are not able to adequately nourish the plant, the bush dies. The yellowness of the leaves is only one of the accompanying signs. For prevention, proper timely watering is important.
• Plant aging. Any crop has a certain growing season, cucumbers are no exception. Nothing can be done about it, you can’t argue against nature.

Video: why cucumber leaves turn yellow

In some cases, the yellowness of the leaves appears even on seedlings. In this case, the reason is most likely low-quality seeds, unsuitable soil for cucumbers, nutrient deficiencies, low temperatures and the presence of sharp drafts in the room.

The yellowness of cucumber leaves can be the result of a variety of reasons - first find out what exactly your plantings suffer from

Experienced gardeners, in order to cope with the problem and not harm the plants even more, are advised to use folk remedies.

The most common recipes are:

• 2-3 handfuls of onion peel pour 10 liters of water, bring to a boil. After 5-10 minutes, remove from heat, cover tightly with a lid and leave for several hours (preferably for a day). Then the infusion is filtered, diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 4 and the plants are watered. "Side effect" - a product containing a complex of essential trace elements, helps to get rid of many pests.
• A 0.5-liter jar of wood ash is poured with 5 liters of herbal infusion. Cut nettle greens, fill the container with it by about a third, then add water to the brim. Future fertilizer is kept in a warm place under a tightly closed lid for 3-4 days. Then they filter and fill them with ashes. Top dressing is well mixed, diluted three times with plenty of water.
• A liter of milk (preferably homemade and in any case unpasteurized) is mixed with 20 ml of iodine and a small amount of small shavings of household or green potassium soap. The resulting solution is sprayed on the underside of the leaves.
• A roll of black bread with cut crusts is poured into 5–7 liters of warm water and left for 8–10 hours. The crumb is ground, put back into the container, add 10 ml of iodine. The liquid is mixed, twice as much water is added, the bushes are sprayed.
• Water and kefir of maximum fat content or whey are mixed in a ratio of 5: 1, the leaves are sprayed.

Fertilizers specially designed for cucumbers are widely used to stimulate fruit set and reduce the number of empty flowers.

What can be fed during fruiting?

During the fruiting of any crops, only natural products are used whenever possible, reducing the amount of chemicals introduced to a minimum. At this stage, 2-3 dressings are enough.

Choose one of the following schemes:

• Watering with infusion of cow manure at the beginning of fruiting, distribution of dry rotted manure or humus over the bed after 7–10 days (1 liter per 2 m²), followed by abundant watering and the use of carbamide and superphosphate granules (10–15 g / m² each).
• Watering the beds with a solution of chicken manure (200 ml per 10 liters of water) with the addition of 10–15 g of a complex nitrogen-potassium-phosphorus fertilizer, in which nitrogen is the least percentage. After 10–15 days, fresh manure (0.5 l) and potassium sulfate (8–10 g) are used, dissolving fertilizers in 10 l of water. After waiting the same amount, they prepare a third dressing, similar to the first. You can also use an infusion of fresh manure. In all cases, the norm per m² is 5 liters.
• Three times the use of a solution of urea (5 g per 10 liters of water). It is impossible to exceed the concentration so as not to harm the health of those who will eat these cucumbers. Immediately after fertilizing, the beds are watered abundantly.
• Infusion of nettle greens, dandelion leaves, plantain or any herb at the beginning of fruiting and potassium nitrate (20-25 g per 10 liters of water) after 2-3 weeks to prolong it.

There are some tricks to prolong fruiting. Cucumbers are watered:

• Infusion of sifted wood ash (a glass of 5 liters of water, insist for a day).
• Infusion of rotted last year's hay (raw materials are crushed, poured three times as much warm water, left for two days).
• A solution of baking soda (25–30 g per 10 liters of water).

Yeast fertilizer

The common expression “it grows by leaps and bounds” is not a metaphor or hyperbole, but advice to summer residents, which has every reason. Cucumbers really sharply add in growth. For top dressing, both pressed fresh yeast and dry powdered ones are suitable. A significant advantage of the product is its absolute naturalness. The benefits of the product for plants are determined by its unique composition. Yeast is a unique combination of amino acids, sugars, vitamins and phytohormones, as well as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. The benefit of the product is to stimulate cell division and differentiation of their functions.

Yeast is a completely natural product sold in any store, successfully used by gardeners as a universal fertilizer.

Feeding with yeast makes cucumbers more resistant to the vagaries of the weather, diseases and pests due to the “shock” dose of vitamins, stimulates the development of the root system, reduces the growth time of cucumber bushes, accelerates the process of ovary and fruit ripening.

As in all other cases, it is important to know the measure, observing a certain frequency of feeding. If you fertilize more than once every 10 days, you can harm the plantings. The optimal interval is 14–16 days. During the summer, at least 4–5 top dressings are carried out, starting when the earth warms up enough and the likelihood of return frosts is minimized. Depending on the region, this is the beginning or the second half of May.

Excess yeast greatly impoverishes the soil and causes a supersaturation of plants with nitrogen. As a result, you have powerful spreading bushes with an almost complete absence of cucumbers.

Yeast is not a universal replacement for other fertilizers. It's more of an addition to them. So don't rely on them alone.

Fertilizer is prepared as follows:

• Five packs of pressed yeast are cut into small pieces, pour 5 liters of heated water up to 30-35ºС water. The liquid is stirred until the yeast dissolves, left in a warm place for 3-4 hours. After this time, the fertilizer is intensively mixed again, its volume is adjusted to 50 liters. The norm per plant is 0.5 liters.
• A bag of dry yeast (8–10 g) is mixed with 50 g of sugar, dissolved in a liter of warm water. Fertilizer is infused for 1.5–2 hours, diluted with water before use, increasing the volume to 20–25 liters.

As an addition to yeast, experienced gardeners recommend using freshly cut grass, nettle greens, and potato tops. Yeast is poured not with plain water, but with a pre-prepared infusion of the indicated ingredients.

In the absence of yeast on hand and the need to urgently feed the cucumbers, you can replace the raw materials with ordinary bread of any kind, soaked in water and squeezed. The liquid is used as fertilizer.

As you know, when baking most types of bread, yeast is used - if there is no bag or briquette at hand, the soaked crumb will be a worthy alternative

In general, you can start a fairly capacious container on the garden plot, fill it halfway with water and throw in stale or moldy bread. Be sure to provide for the presence of a cover - the smell of such a fertilizer is specific. Before using it for its intended purpose, the product is intensively mixed, filtered and half diluted with water.

A bountiful cucumber harvest requires time and effort from the gardener, but it's worth the effort.

Growing cucumbers is a task that even beginner gardeners can handle. Proper application of top dressing, strict adherence to the recommended dosage of natural organics and mineral fertilizers will help to get the maximum possible yield. Better to underfeed than overfertilize. Cucumbers are quite demanding in their care, but nothing can compare with the taste of home-grown vegetables - this is a worthy reward for the gardener for his work.

Cucumbers are a very tasty, fragrant and healthy vegetable crop for the human body. This vegetable is often added to salads and preserved in order to enjoy it in the winter. The culture is quite capricious, requires regular care. To get a bountiful harvest from a gardener requires a lot of strength and patience. However, there are several planting rules, the observance of which will greatly facilitate the cultivation of this vegetable. This is especially true for fertilizers.

Why do it?

For a short period of vegetation, cucumbers need to achieve the formation of a powerful leaf apparatus and a large number of vegetables. This culture develops more actively when grown on fertile soil. With sod-podzolic soil, planting cucumbers is recommended only in the third year, after organic fertilizer has been abundantly applied to the soil.

Planting cucumbers in fresh manure that has just been added to the soil is also not recommended, as strong vegetation will damage fruit germination. However, you can pour five to ten kilograms of fresh manure per square meter during the autumn digging of the earth. The carbon dioxide released during the decomposition of fresh manure has a positive effect on soil fertility.

Due to the fact that this vegetable crop does not like oversaturation with minerals, fertilizers must be handled very carefully. As a rule, the first feeding is carried out in the fall. This allows you to prepare the soil, saturating it with the main complex of useful and nutritious substances. The main top dressing is carried out when planting plants in open ground. This is necessary so that the seedlings quickly adapt to the new land. Therefore, well fertilization is an important step in growing such a capricious crop as cucumbers.

It is also worth noting the usefulness of root fertilizer for cucumbers. If warm weather is observed in your region during the summer period, the root system of cucumber bushes will develop quickly and intensively. And the top dressing introduced into the hole when planting seedlings will contribute to the formation of juicy and ripe cucumbers of the correct shape.

What fertilizers to apply?

Fertilizing the soil before planting cucumbers is a prerequisite. This is the only way to grow healthy and healthy vegetables. This process must be taken carefully, in advance of preparing the soil for further planting seedlings. Gardeners and summer residents disagree on which method of soil preparation is most effective. In this case, you need to focus on your own experience and periodically experiment, noting positive results.

Most experienced gardeners agree that it is advisable to do soil fertilization even in the autumn.

Mineral top dressings, which are used to saturate the soil with useful microelements, give a positive effect only if there is abundant moisture and after several months.

For intensive growth and development, cucumbers need regular nutrition with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It is worth noting that the latter is not contained in organic top dressings, for example, in manure or droppings. Therefore, vegetable crops need the following fertilizers:

• saltpeter;
• sulfurous top dressing;
• chloride top dressing;
• molybdate supplement.

In addition to potassium, onion peels are among the popular top dressings for cucumbers. Both elements are introduced directly into the hole immediately before planting. For each of the listed top dressings, some features of the application are characteristic. Let's consider them in more detail.

onion peel

Before the cucumber seedlings are in the garden, it is recommended to prepare the holes. One of the best solutions is to use onion peel. As a rule, they store it from the beginning of winter, after drying it and putting it in a box. After that, stocks of onion husks are laid out in each hole intended for cucumber bushes, adding a small amount of humus. The resulting mass is stirred. Only after this procedure, you can start planting seedlings of cucumbers. In this case, the plants must be planted together with the soil that was in the cups with seedlings.

The popularity of onion peel is largely due to its reusable use. In addition to directly adding to the garden, you can make an excellent decoction from the husk. The resulting liquid is replaced with water during watering the plant. After receiving the decoction, the onion husks are not thrown away, but dried and, as necessary, added to the wells to the cucumbers. Onion top dressing is often referred to as a fertility biostimulator. It is also a good antiseptic that helps in the fight against harmful bacteria and microorganisms.

Many gardeners note that the husk can be used as compost, as it repels certain types of insects that can lead the plant to death. By placing the husk next to the vegetable crop, you thereby create protection against pests that cannot stand the specific smell of onions.

When deciding to use onion peel without compost, it is recommended to pre-soak it for two hours. Only after that it is possible to “refill” the beds with it.

The composition of onion peel contains a whole set of nutrients that are useful for vegetable crops (vitamin C, E, PP, B, A). You can also note the presence of a large amount of phytoncide, which gives the onion a bactericidal property, quercetin, which is a strong antioxidant, and useful organic acids (potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese and iron). If you spot any insect feasting on the leaves of a cucumber bush, it is likely that spraying a warm decoction of onion skins will help get rid of the pest.

To prepare onion broth, you will need two cups of onion peel and water. Pour the onion peel into a deep container, then fill it with the required amount of water so that the container is completely filled. Turn on the hob burner at medium power. Wait for the moment when the broth begins to boil. Remove the container from the stove, leaving the contents to infuse for two to three hours. After the broth has cooled, the plants can be treated with it. Pour fertilizer both on the leaves and directly on the root system. The remaining broth can be used for compost.

Potassium

Determining that cucumbers need mineral supplements is quite simple. Plants with a mineral deficiency are characterized by darkening and folding of the leaves, you can also notice small "burns" along the edges. The presence of these signs is a signal for the immediate feeding of cucumbers.

The presence of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium is essential for the successful growth and development of cucumbers. However, as mentioned earlier, potassium is not found in either bird droppings or manure. This element can be obtained from sulfur and chloride nitrate, potassium molybdate. When using these fertilizers, the soil is saturated with other elements that are in their composition. It is worth noting that potassium chloride must be placed in the ground only in the autumn. This will allow precipitation to wash off the chlorine contained in the composition, leaving the potassium necessary for cucumbers.

Cucumbers equally do not tolerate both deficiency and excess potassium. In the latter case, the leaves of the vegetable crop are randomly colored in a yellowish-greenish hue. This also indicates a reduction in magnesium. The appearance of a light green edge on the leaves indicates that cucumbers are in great need of potash fertilizer.

If the gardener ignores the signs and does not fertilize, the leaves turn a bright yellow hue, starting to curl inward. The absence of potassium slightly affects the growth of vegetable crops. However, the number of fruits and their quality is significantly reduced. When the lower leaves die, the disease is transmitted to the upper ones. Hot weather can speed up this process. As a result, the plant may die.

Being a precocious type of vegetable crop, cucumbers bloom and bear fruit much more intensively than others. You can grow them all year round if you wish. However, regular and careful monitoring of the necessary complex of trace elements missing from the plant will be required.

Take your time to fertilize each cucumber bush. It is recommended to start feeding two or three plants. After two days, note the changes. Properly applied fertilizer activates the growth of cucumbers.

The preparation of potash top dressing consists in mixing several ingredients. This:

• 10 liters of clean water (it is recommended to use rainwater if available);
• 200 grams of manure or bird droppings;
• one teaspoon of superphosphate;
• one teaspoon of potassium.

The resulting solution is poured into a garden watering can and abundantly watered each well prepared in advance for a cucumber bush. Adding this element to the soil is effective at high moisture levels. Therefore, it is advisable to do this before planting seedlings in the holes. If the soil is unprepared for planting, it is recommended to fertilize it in the summer from three to five times.

To date, there are a large number of recommendations for growing nightshade crops. Consider the most useful and having in practice a positive result.

• The optimal conditions for planting cucumbers in open ground is an air temperature of twenty-five to thirty degrees above zero. Relative humidity should be at least seventy to eighty percent. If these indicators are ignored, seedlings planted in open ground may not take root and soon die.
• Do not forget that nightshade vegetables, including cucumbers, love warmth. Therefore, watering is carried out exclusively with water heated in the sun. By the way, when preparing fertilizer, the formulation of which requires the addition of water, it is also advisable to use warm water. Watering plants on open ground is carried out in the evening, when grown in a greenhouse - only in the early morning. With insufficient moisture intake, the fruits will acquire a bitter aftertaste.
• Cucumbers have a negative attitude towards chlorine, which is often one of the ingredients of potash fertilizers. In order not to injure the plant with an element unpleasant for it, it is advisable to use products such as potassium salt and potassium magnesia when preparing mineral fertilizers. Their composition, as a rule, contains the minimum amount of chlorine that is unable to harm the plant.
• The hole before planting is not only fed with the aforementioned fertilizers in the form of onion peel or potassium, but also watered abundantly to moisten the soil. In order to provide the vegetable crop with the necessary supply of calcium, it is also recommended to put ground eggshells in the hole. After that, the hole is lightly sprinkled with earth. Then mineral fertilizers are applied, cucumber seedlings are planted. The surface covering of the soil with mulch will reduce the number of germinating weeds and improve the quality of the soil. Use fresh cut grass, hay or straw as mulch.

For information on what to put in the hole when planting cucumbers, see below.