Size of Pot for Cucumbers

[Mark Anderson]

I'm growing cucumber for the first time. The one thing I wish growers would put on the label is the size of root ball or the minimum pot size for whatever plant along side with its height and spacing requirements. But I digress. I have no problem growing hot pepper plants in those 5 gallon containers, containers that typically hold 5 gallons of paint or other stuff.

I put my tomatoes in 20" or greater containers and have had no problem growing them to full size. A 5 gallon container would be way too small for tomatoes. Right now I have to decide whether to put the cucumbers in a 22" pot or can I get away with using 5 gallon containers? Any insight on this would be appreciated. I did a google search on growing cucumber and none of those sites have this kind of information either.

BTW: For all you container gardening cheapskates. :-) Menards here in Chicago have these 20 gallon plastic tubs on sale for $3 each. Drill drainage holes in the bottom and you have a very cheap 22" planter that holds 3 cubic feet of soil, big enough to grow tomatoes in.

[Doug Kanter]

Even if you're growing bush cucumbers, they're big, clunky plants whose branches hang sideways and can be brittle. Go for the biggest pot you can manage, so the branches have more soil surface to rest on, and for another reason: They drink lots of water. If you grow them in full sun, which is where they belong, the smaller pots will dry out very quickly.

Don't forget to put some composted manure about halfway down in the soil layer.

[Mark Anderson]

Thanks for the info. I put them in the big containers and they'll get total unobstructed sun from sunrise to sunset on my new garden addition on the main rooftop. There's also a lot of room for them to grow. I should have figured that since the cucumber fruit itself holds a lot of water that its root system will need a lot as well.

I'm a mushroom compost person.

[Doug Kanter]

As far as branch support, I once ran a thick bead of silicone sealer around the edge of a not-so-smoothly-finished plastic pot, so it wouldn't cut into the heavy branches as they leaned over the edge. It adds a week of curing time, but it worked nicely.