When Do You Plant Cucumbers?

by Mike Lieberman on November 11, 2009 · 8 comments

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When do you plant cucumber plants? Not in July. I can tell you that much.

Now that the cold weather has come around and it’s dropped into the 40s some nights, the cucumber plant is sad looking. I’m hoping that the two small pieces of fruit on it will grow some more, but I’ll have to wait and see.

Next year, I’ll definitely get the cucumber planted much earlier in the season.

Here’s what happened this year and why I planted it so late – I killed the first one and took too long to get the next one planted. No excuse except laziness.

The second one was growing nicely. It got to be so big that I had to move it across the backyard closer to allow it to climb up the fence.

A week or so later I was able to harvest my first cucumbers.

The downfall of the plant could’ve been a month ago when the leaves started to yellow. At the time I wasn’t concerned because they were still bearing fruit and blossoming, but that’s recently changed with the weather.

There are still small pieces of fruit on the tree that I’m hoping will grow to be larger, but the important lesson is to get the damned cucumber planted earlier in the season.

When do you usually get yours planted? When do you start your seeds?


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  • shawna88

    Once they start turning yellow, they're pretty much done. The best thing to do is to plant all your veggies, particularly vining veggies like pumpkins, squash, cucumber, etc. early in the spring – probably May for your zone 6 conditions. My cucumbers produced all summer and would have continued through the fall had I watered better – I was exhausted – got probably 35 or 40 cucumbers out of just a few plants. :-)

    Shawna

  • duanemarcus

    Here in Georgia I start my seeds in the greenhouse in the beginning of April. They are ready to plant in the ground by the 1st of May when the soil has warmed up some.They like warm soil so don't do much until it warms up. We have lots of disease pressure here in the middle of the summer so I like to get them in the ground as early as possible. I make a second planting directly in the ground about mid- June to replace the earlier ones that have succumbed by August. In a good year I'll have cucumbers into September. Not this year though.

  • Mike Lieberman

    Yea definitely lots of learning this year. Have lots of ideas for next season. The planning should be much easier.

  • Mike Lieberman

    I'm definitely going to be starting some plants from seed next year. Need to find out what I can get my hands on. Also going to stack up on crazy containers for my grandmothers.

  • shawna88

    Once they start turning yellow, they're pretty much done. The best thing to do is to plant all your veggies, particularly vining veggies like pumpkins, squash, cucumber, etc. early in the spring – probably May for your zone 6 conditions. My cucumbers produced all summer and would have continued through the fall had I watered better – I was exhausted – got probably 35 or 40 cucumbers out of just a few plants. :-)

    Shawna

  • duanemarcus

    Here in Georgia I start my seeds in the greenhouse in the beginning of April. They are ready to plant in the ground by the 1st of May when the soil has warmed up some.They like warm soil so don't do much until it warms up. We have lots of disease pressure here in the middle of the summer so I like to get them in the ground as early as possible. I make a second planting directly in the ground about mid- June to replace the earlier ones that have succumbed by August. In a good year I'll have cucumbers into September. Not this year though.

  • Mike Lieberman

    Yea definitely lots of learning this year. Have lots of ideas for next season. The planning should be much easier.

  • Mike Lieberman

    I'm definitely going to be starting some plants from seed next year. Need to find out what I can get my hands on. Also going to stack up on crazy containers for my grandmothers.