I have not ever planted cucumbers before so I'm not sure what to do. I have a small cucumber plant ( covered by a soda bottle ) and it has a flower, it only has 4 leaves. Do I need to pinch off the early buds? Or let em run their course.
Zone 6
Thanks
Guess I can't retire from posting :))
Almost scary in a way how gardening fundamentals are not available for nurturing new folks. Books, TV shows somewhat but I'd guess we need an IPAD apps. My kids just look at our garden but have not any hands on and that is where wisdom resides.
Cukes and soda bottles where did that come from. I'm familiar with pears in a bottle for for pricey liqueur and cloches for mini greenhouse but you stumped me.
First hot day and your covered cucumber is going to be toast, unless it's inside, which is unlikely since you have flowers, unless you got this from a nursery and they have had it under lights, unless . . .
Right, the question. You don't have to pinch the flower off, and I probably wouldn't, but you may get a little more production out of it, if you do, maybe.
I just get the feeling that there are some other questions that you should be asking.
If you leave the flower on, you'll taste a fresh cucumber earlier. I just hate delayed gratification.
Leave it. Focus on growing a good strong plant and it will support many more. Beware the bottle in the sun it will tend to cook the plant and encourage mould.
David
Thanks, I plan on removing the bottles this weekend. There's lots of condensation in them, they only get maybe 4 hours of sun a day. It's been mild and wanted to try the bottles to keep the squirrels out. The kids keep digging in the mulch. I'll switch to chicken wire.
But I think the cumbers liked the bottle, as well as the cantelope. They both seem to be developing nicely in the warmer temps.
Oh, and these are from seeds.
Cheers
Unless it's a male flower, which it probably is since they come first.
To the OP: Take off the bottle and leave the plant alone except for watering and weeding. It will have male flowers a few weeks before it has female (fruiting) flowers.
--S.
Yeah, but if a little girl flower shows up and there's no little boy flower there, in the full bloom of his youth, she'd feel awfully lonesome. So just leave that little boy flower alone, he's waiting for the love of his life. ;O)
Will that improve?
Oh, I know his song. After chew the tops off of 4 African marigolds, and dumping out some seedling, I wrapped the trunk of the oak tree that comes down next to my pots with chicken wire. I've had a lot fewer surprises lately. It was fun yesterday, watching a squirrel trying to get into the bird feeder. He'd have two feet on a branch, and two hands on the bird feeder, and the bird feeder would swing away from him, and he's sear for awhile. then he got on top of the feeder, and then slid off, just catching himself on the wind chime below. The chicadees, robins, and jays are are really working it. I have to put a medium sized coffee can of black sunflower seeds in it/day to keep them fed.
Really should just be sprinkled on, but if it doesn't hurt the roots and entertains the kids, what the heck.
I just did that for Mr. Pesky, our raccoon mascot here at Camp Runamuck. He had been digging up the mulch, looking for worms, I suppose, so I put down wire fencing on the ground so that he can't dig anymore. The he started to take an interest in the pepper patch, and we lost 4 out of 31 peppers. Now the pepper patch looks like the DMZ.
You may try putting down some clear plastic sheeting around you plants. You can get it at the hardware store. I think they use it for painting. I put it down for my peppers and tomatoes and then just cut an X in the plastic where I wanted to plant (usually next to a drip emitter). In replacing 2 of the peppers today, before the chicken wire went up, I was very pleased with the sauna temps in the soil.
I'm running about 2 1/2 months ahead of where I was last year at this time. It was mid August before any tomatoes or peppers set. This year, even with all the inclement weather
I have half a dozen jalapeños set plus 6 or 7 sets on the tomatoes. One tomato (Stupice) had 3 tomatoes on it when it got planted, but it had been outside for a month and a half so it counts.
Must be doin' somethin' right to have flowers then ;O)
I'll drink to that.
Yep, if you give the little boy flower a cucumber-vasectomy, there will never be any little baby cucumbers.
--S.
Rather than removing the bottles entirely, you could cut the top off so that the plants sit in a collar. It'll give them some protection still but will stop them from cooking. You already know they've liked the environment of the bottles so keep it up for a little longer but in a modifed form. You've still got babies there and babies like protection and cossetting.
Good idea, They seem to like it.
Cheers
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