How to grow cucumbers on a windowsill in winter

Not everyone has a vegetable garden or a summer cottage, but everyone wants to have tasty and healthy organic vegetables on the table. This dream can be easily realized if you start cultivating vegetables in an apartment on the windowsill, especially if the windows face the sunny side.

Growing plants is an interesting business, and in the case of cucumbers, it is also useful. You will learn how to grow cucumbers on a windowsill in winter from the article.

Features of growing cucumbers on the windowsill

Cucumbers are grown on a bright and spacious windowsill. To ensure that the plant gets more light, install a mirror next to the bush or attach reflective foil. To prevent the bush from overcooling, place a heat-insulating material, for example, a sheet of foam plastic, under the pot.

Optimal sowing dates

Fruiting of cucumbers begins 40-50 days after germination. The duration of fruiting is 1-1.5 months, so one-time sowing is not enough. If you want to have fresh vegetables 4-6 months a year, you need to plant seeds 3-4 times.

Accordingly, the interval between sowings will be 30-45 days. As soon as the first generation of cucumbers stops bearing fruit, the second will immediately begin to bear fruit, and so on.

Which varieties are suitable for home cultivation?

For planting and growing on a windowsill, early parthenocarpic hybrids are chosen, which are self-pollinating. Ordinary balcony varieties are also suitable for these purposes, but when growing in a closed window they will need help with pollination.

The selected hybrids or varieties should grow well in low light conditions. It is also important that the crop is not tall, otherwise the plant will take up a lot of space on the window.

To cultivate cucumbers all year round on the windowsill, choose the following varieties and hybrids: Athlete, Azhur, Balcony, City Cucumber, Courage, Connie, Indoor Miracle, Indoor, Our Masha, Real Colonel, Meringue, Premium, Prestige, Talisman, Chistye Prudy, Miracle on window, Pharaoh.

Basic growing rules

After choosing a variety and purchasing seeds, everything necessary for planting is prepared. Along with the seed, soil substrate is purchased at the gardening store. If there is no suitable container at home, they buy it too.

Choosing a container for growing

To grow seedlings, use plastic containers, wooden boxes, peat cups or tablets, milk or juice boxes. Before use, the containers are thoroughly washed with laundry soap and doused with boiling water.

Peat products are placed in a common container and filled with warm water to swell. When they increase several times in size, they are planted.

Setting the stage

For growing cucumbers, a purchased universal soil or substrate for pumpkin crops is perfect. Store-bought soil goes through all the necessary processing during production, but some vegetable growers prepare the substrate themselves from the following components:

1. Humus and peat are mixed in equal parts. Add 1 tbsp to the mixture bucket. wood ash.
2. Mix one part of turf, compost and garden soil. A small amount of river sand, rotted sawdust and ash are added to the resulting composition.

Next, the prepared soil is disinfected: calcined in the oven, doused with boiling water and a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Such activities destroy microbes and pest larvae. Disinfection is carried out several days before sowing, so that during this time beneficial soil bacteria are restored.

Seed preparation

Growing cucumbers on a window in winter will not be difficult if you properly process the seed. First, the seeds are calibrated. Dilute 1 tsp in a glass of water. soda and place the grains in it for 20 minutes. Floating seeds are unsuitable for planting - they are dummies. The remaining seeds are removed and dried.

Next, the grains are kept for 20-30 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate and washed under running water. The next stage is seed germination. The seeds are wrapped in damp cotton cloth and placed on a saucer. The seeds are kept in this state until grain-sized sprouts appear. The fabric is periodically moistened.

Landing

The seeds are planted in rows at a distance of 2-3 cm from each other, and the grains are deepened by 1 cm. If planted in separate containers, then two seeds are planted in the soil for safety. Subsequently, the weaker sprout is removed.

The soil is moistened with a sprayer and the container is covered with film or transparent glass to create greenhouse conditions. The seedlings are placed in the brightest place and kept at room temperature until germination. Then the cover is removed.

Transplanting cucumbers to a permanent place

The optimal age of plants for transplanting to a permanent place is when they form 2-3 true leaves and a compact, non-elongated stem. Such seedlings are more likely to take root in a new place.

Features of care

To safely grow cucumbers in the winter at home on a window, follow agrotechnical rules. This process may seem boring to novice vegetable growers, but the crop will delight you with tasty and high-quality vegetables.

Watering

Plants are moistened with settled water at room temperature.. If water cold from the tap, the seedlings become supercooled and their roots die off. The amount of soil in the pots is small, so the soil dries quickly. The cucumber crop is demanding of moisture, so the soil is not allowed to dry out.

Plants are watered moderately at the roots in the morning. Do not do this in the evening, because condensation will collect on the foliage at night. Excess moisture at night causes fungal diseases.

Temperature

The optimal air temperature for cultivating cucumbers on a window is +18-26°C. This indicator should not change. If this is required, insulate the window frames, since cucumbers on the windowsill in winter do not tolerate drafts. The cold from the window can destroy the plant or slow down the ripening of fruits even in a warm room.

Correct lighting

For full growth, the plant needs at least 12-14 hours of lighting per day. Therefore, in winter, when daylight hours are short, lamps are used for additional illumination. They are installed at a distance of 30-40 cm from the tops of the plants.

Accordingly, as the bushes grow, the lamps are raised. To provide the maximum amount of light, reflective foil is attached above the lamp or on the sides of the plants.

Application of fertilizers and fertilizers

The first fertilizer is applied during the formation of the second true leaf. The entire growing season feed once every 7-10 days. For this use:

• wood ash;
• complex fertilizers;
• humates.

An infusion is prepared from the ash (100 g per 1 liter of water), also lightly sprinkled with it. soil surface. During the flowering period, the foliage and stems are sprayed with a boric mixture (2 g of boric acid per 2 liters of water).

They also infuse banana peels in water. Plants are watered with this solution during fruiting. Liquid preparations for fertilizing cucumbers:

• "Good power" for cucumbers;
• "Hello";
• "Florhumate";
• ROST.

pinching and shaping the bush

Depending on the variety, bushes are formed differently. The vigorously climbing plant grows in one stem. The stepsons that appear in the sinuses are removed. Weakly climbing cucumbers are grown in 1-2 stems.

Growing weakly climbing varieties with two stems:

• the main shoot is pinched above the fourth leaf;
• two second-order shoots are left;
• the whips are tied to the supports.

Important! The main thing is to blind the ovaries in the first and second sinuses in time, as they slow down the ripening of cucumbers.

Tying up

Without a garter, the plants are poorly ventilated and shade each other. The lashes are tied with a nylon cord to a vertical support, which is located in the pot.

A trellis is also installed. To do this, a metal ring is screwed to the slope, to which a rope is tied. Its second end is fixed to a wooden peg, which is installed in the pot. As the crop grows, the lashes are tied or attached to the cord with special plastic clips.

For your information. Some vegetable growers attach a plastic mesh to the window opening. Varieties with tendrils cling to the cells themselves, while plants without tendrils are tied up independently.

Pollination

Artificial pollination is required for bee-pollinated cucumber varieties. The event takes place in the morning.The male flower is picked, the petals are folded back and its central part is touched to the stamens of the female open buds.

Harvesting Rules

In winter, only early varieties of cucumbers are grown on the windowsill. They begin to bear fruit approximately 40-50 days after germination. At this time, the plants are still weak, so the first fruits set are picked at the ovary stage.

The crop endures the first fruiting with difficulty. A plant that is not yet fully formed gives all its strength to cucumbers, which inhibits its growth and further development. Thus, the vines are allowed to grow stronger, which allows the crop to produce much more yield in the future than in the case of growing the firstborn to full size.

Vegetables are harvested every 2-3 days. If the harvest is not harvested in time, the growth of further ovaries and the formation of new cucumbers will slow down significantly. One overripe vegetable in winter stops the growth of the entire vine. If this is allowed, the plant on the windowsill in winter may stop developing altogether.

Possible problems

The most common difficulties with home cultivation:

1. If vegetables are bitter, this means that there is an excess of cucurbitacin in the fruit, which occurs under unfavorable growing factors: sudden temperature changes, severe cold or, conversely, heat, lack of watering.
2. If the lower leaves dry out, this is due to too high a temperature and low humidity in the room.
3. If the lower leaves of the seedlings turn yellow, apply fertilizer containing potassium, phosphorus and magnesium.
4. If the seedlings are stretched out, it means that the crop does not have enough light and you need to add a little soil mixture. It is added 2-3 times a month.

Important! Purchase those varieties of cucumbers that have the inscription “genetically without bitterness” on the packaging.Such vegetables will never taste bitter.

Is it possible to encounter diseases and pests when growing at home?

Cucumbers growing on a windowsill are most often affected by aphids and house flies (fungus gnats). You can bring aphids home with flowers. The pest is eliminated by washing the leaves with soapy water. The procedure is carried out once a week. Midges and larvae appear more often in October and March. The roots suffer from the larvae in the soil. They are destroyed with insecticidal preparations, for example, “Aktara”, “Mukhoed” or “Bazudin”.

Among the diseases, indoor cucumbers are threatened by black leg. This is a fungal disease that affects young plants. Reasons: poorly disinfected priming, poorly prepared seed material, low temperatures and waterlogging of the crop.

Germination and harvest dates

If the seeds were previously germinated, the first sprouts appear 3-5 days after sowing, and when planting dry seeds, the period of sprouting increases to 5-7 days.

The duration of harvest ripening depends on the variety of cucumbers. Early ripening plants begin to bear fruit after 40-50 days.

Important! The fruits are harvested when their size reaches 8-10 cm. If you harvest the crop in time and do not allow it to outgrow, new vegetables will immediately begin to form on the bush.

Conclusion

Growing cucumbers on a windowsill in winter is not difficult, and the harvest can be harvested all year round. To do this, summer weather is created indoors for the crop. You should choose the right variety and prepare seeds with soil. You will also need lighting equipment. If the right conditions are created, the crop will delight you with a harvest regardless of the season.