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Balcony cucumber: growing, feeding
Cucumbers from the garden are tasty and healthy, but familiar. Vegetables from a balcony or loggia are much more interesting. Breeders have created a hybrid variety – the Balkonny cucumber, which gives a bountiful harvest in an ordinary city apartment.
Description of the variety “Balkonny”
Unlike ground cucumbers, which are intended for cultivation in the garden or in the country, “home” cucumbers differ in the size of the whips and fruits. The cucumber stalk grows no more than 1,5 m, and cucumbers – no more than 8 cm. If the plant is comfortable, you can harvest the crop every day from the beginning of flowering.
Cucumber “Balconny” – a hybrid variety with a short stem and small fruits
Other characteristics of the hybrid cucumber:
- self-pollination;
- shade tolerance;
- female type of flowering;
- precocity
- small bright green leaves;
- trunk with many nodes forming 2-3 ovaries.
Dense, cylindrical cucumbers ripen on a cucumber whip – fragrant, sweetish, crunchy. The first crop can be removed 40-50 days after sowing the seeds.
Growing cucumbers of the “Balconny” variety
You can grow homemade varieties of hybrids in special containers or ordinary flower pots. In containers, a drainage layer of fine expanded clay and holes for excess moisture to drain off is required. Cucumbers will grow best on the southeast or east side. Plants do not like the wind, therefore, an unglazed balcony, an open loggia for growing will not work.
Plant the seeds no earlier than April, since the seedlings need to be taken out to the balcony after the buds appear. If this is not done, the flowers will fall off. Between planting and the appearance of the first cucumber, an average of 2,5 months will pass.
Pre-treat purchased seeds.
- For 20 min. soak in a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
- Spread out on wet, 3-layer cheesecloth.
- Leave to wake up for 3 days, keeping the gauze damp.
- As soon as the shoots appear, carefully plant the seeds in separate cups with prepared soil to a depth of 2 cm. You can deepen the seeds directly into the growing containers at a distance of at least 40 cm from each other.
It is easier to buy ready-made universal soil in a flower shop than to prepare the ground by hand. Please note: the acidity should vary between 6,5-6,8 pH. The seed cups can be placed on a warm, well-lit windowsill. If the room is north and there is little light, direct a lamp at the seedlings. The room temperature required for the rapid development of plants is from 24 ° to 26 °.
As soon as 5 leaves are formed on the stem, be sure to tie the cucumbers to the support. If this is not done, the stems will curl, the cucumbers will bear little fruit. As a support, you can take a clothesline by pulling it vertically, or buy a special device for climbing plants. The stems should be loose on the support.
Growing balcony cucumbers requires patience and adherence to certain rules.
In order for cucumbers to quickly begin to bear fruit, it is important to properly care for them.
- Pinch the side shoots.
- Feed the plants every 2 weeks.
- Spill every 2 days.
- Protect from direct sunlight.
- On cold nights, insulate containers by wrapping with burlap, spunbond.
- From the beginning of fruiting, harvest daily so that new cucumbers grow.
Feeding balcony cucumbers is required. It is convenient to use universal liquid fertilizers for indoor plants. You can fertilize the soil with crushed eggshells, wood ash, tea infusion or urea solution: 1 tsp. for 3 liters of water.
Cucumber “Balconny” is a hybrid variety of gherkins that grows well on a warm balcony or windowsill. If you take proper care of the plant, you can feast on delicious cucumbers all summer long.