Grow Cucumbers in 5 Easy Steps

Cucumbers are one of the easiest vegetables to grow in the garden, both from seed and starter plant. While they do have a lot of specific needs and are the favorite snack for many pests, cucumbers do well when they are well cared for. All it takes is a little prep and planning to get it right and you can easily bring in half a dozen cucumbers per plant in a single season.

Learn How to Grow Cucumbers in 5 Easy Steps

Follow these 5 easy steps to begin growing your own cucumbers in the garden this summer.

Seed or Starter

Cucumbers are best planted from seed, and if you choose this option you should sow seeds within two to three weeks of ground thaw in your time zone. The long growing season for cucumbers requires that they get as much time in the ground as possible. Starter seeds can be added to the garden later in the season, up to five weeks after the ground has thawed. Only choose healthy starter plants that have dropped their initial leaves but don’t have more than two sets of leaves.

Choose a Location

Where and how you plant your cucumbers is important because it can make the difference between a productive plant and one that leaves you without anything to harvest. Cucumbers need full sun for eight hours a day and well drained soil that has some sort of ground cover to prevent slugs and other insects from eating the tender leaves.

Vine Support

A lot of gardeners traditionally let their cucumber vines crawl over the garden bed, but cucumbers prefer climbing up and on something. Set up a trellis or climbing fence for cucumbers to use. If you can provide something at an angle for them to climb, even better because it helps support the growing cucumbers.

Complete with Mulch

Cucumbers succumb to erosion, heavy rain, pests and ground rot fairly quickly when they do not have a good layer of mulch between them and the ground. To prevent all of this, add a thick layer of wood or straw mulch to the part of the garden where they are planted. Grass clipping and other soft mulch is not sufficient for dealing with soft bodied slugs that are able to easily move across those materials.

Adopt a Watering Schedule

Cucumber plants need plenty of water, but it is important that you water only near the base of the plant. Watering leaves and vines can contribute to mildew or rot, and those parts of the plant can’t do anything with the water anyway. The plant is picky about the time of day they are watered too, preferring to be watered early in the morning or late in the evenings when it is cool outside.

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