Features of growing cucumbers in 5-liter bottles

One of the popular methods for growing cucumbers at home is planting them in five-liter water bottles. This method has a number of advantages over standard growing technology. Today we will talk about the features of this growing method.

Growing cucumbers in 5 liter bottles has a number of advantages:

• creation of greenhouse conditions for culture;

• sufficient depth and width for plant growth;

• ensuring protection of vegetation from harmful organisms;

• reducing the amount of weeds;

• the possibility of individual care for each cucumber bush;

• saving water (the container will not crack due to the large amount of liquid, the water will remain within the limits of such a bottle).

This cultivation technology has almost no drawbacks.

To begin with, you should choose the most suitable crop varieties for growing in this way. The best option would be various hybrid varieties:

• "Zozulya";

• "Matilda";

• "Emelya".

Before you start planting, you should prepare seed material, soil and five-liter bottles. A few days before planting, the seeds are first slightly warmed up, disinfected in a composition with potassium permanganate.

Then they should be soaked in wet gauze. Next, you need to wait for the first young shoots to appear.

The preparation of the earthen mixture is also important.... You can buy ready-made mass at a garden store. And you can also prepare it yourself.

If its density is too high, then you can add some more sand. It is worth adding minerals to the resulting soil mixture, superphosphate is best suited.

When preparing the container, the top is cut off first. It does not need to be thrown away, it will later be used to cover the bottle after planting the seed. Several small holes are made from below, they are designed to remove excess liquid after watering.

When all the preparatory steps are done, you can already plant the seeds in cut plastic containers. The earth is poured into a bottle, not reaching the top edge of 3-4 centimeters. It should be well watered with warm water.

After that, you need to outline 3-4 small holes with a depth of up to 2 centimeters. One seed is placed in each such hole. They are carefully covered with earth. Further, all this is covered with the previously cut off top to create the effect of a greenhouse.

In order for the cucumbers to develop and give a good harvest, it will be necessary to properly care for them. The crop will require regular watering. The first three weeks after planting, such a procedure is carried out once every two days. Before flowering, watering is performed once every 7 days. Then it is carried out every 3-4 days. You can only take warm water for this.

Vegetation is moistened only at the root... After each such procedure, the soil around the plants should be slightly loosened, this will prevent the formation of a crust, and will create oxygen access to the root system.

A couple of times a day it will be necessary to ventilate the crops. This procedure takes approximately 10-15 minutes. You just need to slide the cover. Make sure that too much condensation does not form on the container; it must be removed in a timely manner. The cover or protective film can be completely removed after germination.

If you have planted a non-self-pollinating cucumber variety, then you will have to pollinate it yourself. In this case, you need to carefully look at the bushes and find female and male buds on them. The former are placed on small seals.

After that, you must carefully take the male flower, remove the petals, so that in the end only the stamens remain. They are carried out several times in the center of the female bud. You can collect pollen with cotton wool and transfer it to the desired area.

Plants planted in five-liter containers will also need fertilizer. They are applied for the first time at the beginning of flowering. At this stage, you can use urea, potassium sulfate. They are diluted in water (there is 1 teaspoon of such substances per 10 liters of liquid).

The second time fertilization is applied in 12-14 days. At this stage, sodium humate is used, instead of it you can take ready-made useful mixtures ("Breadwinner", "Fertility").

Subsequent feeding can be done with the same ingredients that were used for the second one. They are applied once every 10 days. Remember that all fertilizers should only be applied to pre-moistened soil. All these top dressings allow you to grow a good harvest.

In addition to root fertilizers, spraying will also be important for cucumbers. Most often, a solution with warm water and urea is used for this.

The formation of bushes is important. This procedure includes the following steps: pinching, tying, pinching. If you grow this crop on the balcony, then the garter is most conveniently done using a mesh with large mesh holes or a rope trellis. It is installed near plastic bottles.

To create it, a rope is firmly pulled under the ceiling, the harnesses are fixed to it in an upright position. The total height of such a support must be at least 1.5 meters. It should be formed when the vegetation is 20-25 centimeters long.

In the process of pinching, the lateral processes are cut off. Parts that have formed in the sinuses of 5-6 sheets are cut off (you need to count from the bottom). It is important to remove the stepsons before their length reaches 4-5 centimeters.

After the pinching procedure has been completed, you can start pinching. At a height of 50 cm, the lashes are cut, this must be done so that only one ovary and a few leaves remain there.

Further, at the level of 50-100 cm, 2-4 thin lashes are left. At the same time, on each such part, there should be 2 ovaries and a few leaves. All excess length is carefully removed.

For the next 50 cm, the processes do not need to be cut, they are only cut in such a way that each of them eventually retains 3-4 ovaries and a few leaves. At a level of more than 1.5 m, the main shoot is cut to slow down its growth.

It should be noted that according to this scheme, the culture can be grown both in apartments on balconies and window sills, and in the country in greenhouse and greenhouse structures.... If you use ripe vegetables for pickling, then you should wait until they are about 10-15 cm long.If you plan to use cucumbers for canning, then you need to grow vegetables to a length of 7-10 cm.

Harvesting is best done in the late evening or early morning. It is believed that at this time the fruits are as elastic and strong as possible. First, you will need to carefully cut the stalk so as not to hurt the thin lashes. Most often, the crop is harvested once every couple of days.