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A greenhouse for growing cucumbers all year round is a stationary room in which optimal conditions must be maintained for the growth and fruiting of this heat-loving popular vegetable. Ordinary country greenhouses are not well suited to protect cucumbers from winter frosts and autumn-spring slush. They are good only in summer and early autumn. To get a good crop of cucumbers in a greenhouse all year round, it is necessary to provide the vegetables with the most comfortable conditions:
- temperature regime;
- the level of soil and air moisture;
- ventilation;
- good illumination;
- timely watering;
- high-quality top dressing and shoot care.
Growing cucumbers in a greenhouse all year round is a very expensive business, the costs can only be paid off with large volumes of vegetables intended for sale. There are many requirements for a year-round greenhouse.
The best material for a greenhouse would be polycarbonate. Plates made of this material perfectly transmit light, provide sufficient air circulation and at the same time serve as a good heat insulator. It is most convenient to assemble a polycarbonate structure on a metal frame. It is built from pipes, on which it is easy to make fasteners for future walls. Before this, the metal structure must be painted to protect the material from rust, because growing cucumbers involves high humidity during the entire growth period.
Heating in the greenhouse
Cucumbers are heat-loving plants that do not grow in poor lighting and low temperatures. It is possible to plant seeds or seedlings in the soil only when the soil temperature is not lower than +12°C, and the air temperature must be maintained at +20 … +25°C during the entire life cycle of the plant. In summer and early autumn, vegetables grow well in open ground or in a greenhouse covered with ordinary plastic wrap.
But in order to grow cucumbers all year round, it is necessary to supply the greenhouse with additional sources of heat. The easiest way is to install a stove in the center of the building, which is heated by coal or wood. But this method of heating requires constant monitoring, as firewood and coal burn quickly and do not keep heat for long.
An alternative way is to build a special stove that runs on sawdust. Sawdust burns out completely for a longer time than firewood, and the temperature after their complete combustion lasts up to 10 hours. This is quite enough to heat the greenhouse at night.
The most reliable and expensive option is to create a separate boiler room, the pipes of which will connect the greenhouse with a boiler that heats water. The fuel in this case is liquid, solid or gas, and the heat source is water vapor that flows along the perimeter of the greenhouse and maintains the temperature regime at the required level around the clock. But this method of heating is extremely expensive, so it is suitable only for large industrial greenhouses that supply large wholesale bases and shops with vegetables.
Greenhouse lighting
Polycarbonate materials transmit the sun’s rays well, but in winter the daylight hours are much shorter. And cucumbers need bright lighting for 13-14 hours a day. Therefore, growing these vegetables in a greenhouse all year round will not do without additional light sources. Various methods are used for this:
- Special lampsintended for greenhouse plants. Their advantages are that they are best suited for maintaining the process of photosynthesis in plant leaves and are inexpensive, and the disadvantage is the complexity of installing such devices.
- Energy saving mercury lamps provide a sufficient amount of light, but have a relatively short life and create difficulties in disposal.
- Fluorescent lighting fixtures can also be used in a greenhouse, but they take up a lot of space and look bulky.
- LED built-in lighting looks great, but installation is expensive.
Additional lighting in a greenhouse for growing cucumbers is one of the main conditions for obtaining a crop, so in any case, you will have to choose an option. Before installing a greenhouse, it is also worth choosing the most illuminated area, but preferably on a calm side, since drafts and temperature changes can adversely affect growing vegetables.
Soil treatment
Before forming beds for cucumbers, you need to prepare the soil. First, the top layer 5-10 cm thick is removed to get rid of parts of other plants and possible pests. Then the earth is treated with bleach or copper sulphate. This is necessary for the final extermination of harmful microorganisms that are in the soil.
The cleaned soil is fertilized with various minerals containing nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus. It is more convenient to use ready-made fertilizers designed specifically for growing cucumbers. In some cases, the soil is additionally fed with manure and bird droppings, but in a large greenhouse, the use of commercially produced fertilizers will be the best option. If cucumber seeds were planted in the greenhouse, then the first shoots will have to wait several days.
With the seedling method of cultivation, after processing the soil, beds up to 30 cm high and up to half a meter apart are formed. In the beds, you need to make holes, keeping a distance of up to 30-40 cm. This is necessary so that future cucumber bushes do not interfere with each other.
Before planting seedlings, the hole is watered with water, a weak solution of manganese or saltpeter, which will disinfect the earth again and create a nutrient medium for young and weak roots. Then seedlings are placed in the recess and sprinkled with a dense layer of soil.
Caring for cucumbers in a greenhouse
Already at the planting stage, it is necessary to provide trellises, to which long shoots of vegetables will be tied. They are pinched at a length of 50 cm, creating a multilayer bush: the lower side and middle shoots must be tied up above the first leaf, the upper ones – above the second. All secondary stems with dead ovaries and dry leaves must be removed immediately, otherwise they will interfere with the formation of fruits.
Large year-round greenhouses are usually equipped with an automatic watering system. This is an expensive technology, but it saves time. If there is no opportunity to purchase and install automation, you can get by with traditional manual watering. You just need to make sure that the water is not cold, especially in winter, when the temperature of the air and soil is so difficult to maintain at the proper level.
The air humidity in the greenhouse should be about 90%, and the soil moisture – 50%. But the ventilation system is also mandatory, because high humidity and relatively low air and soil temperatures can lead to the appearance of gray rot, which can destroy the entire crop.
In the cold season, cucumbers especially need additional sources of nutrients. Water-soluble fertilizers that are sprayed on the leaves effectively deal with this problem. There are a large number of such products on the market, designed specifically for growing cucumbers in a greenhouse all year round.
Even if all the conditions for the growth of vegetables are created in the greenhouse, it is more correct to choose hybrid varieties that are less sensitive to frost, humidity changes, artificial lighting and other adverse factors that occur in late autumn and winter.
A feature of these types of cucumbers is not only their resistance to difficult conditions, but also the speed of fruit ripening, which will allow you to harvest a rich harvest throughout the year.
