One of the most common summer vegetables is the cucumber. It is difficult to imagine summer food without it: it is consumed fresh, used for s alting, preservation. According to reviews, description, cucumber Meringue F1 is one of the best.
Description
Meringue F1 is a new self-pollinating hybrid bred by foreign breeders. The fruits of the variety are cylindrical in shape, dark green in color, which does not change throughout the entire ripening period. Zelentsy reach ten centimeters in length, weighing about one hundred grams.
Judging by the description and reviews of Meringue F1 cucumbers, it becomes clear that they have good taste. They do not have the bitterness characteristic of some other varieties. The fruits are ideal for sale, they have an attractive presentation, a dense structure, there are no voids.
Disadvantages and advantages
F1 Meringue Cucumbers, according to reviews and descriptions, have their own advantages and disadvantages. The first include:
- high yield variety;
- fruits are stored for a long time, and without loss of externalkind;
- short period of ripening greens;
- excellent taste;
- Zelenets tend not to outgrow.
Disadvantages include Meringue F1 being susceptible to certain types of disease.
Features of cultivation
Like all varieties, the Meringue F1 cucumber has growing features. They prefer to grow in clay soils. It is best to grow a crop in a place where potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, onions used to be grown.
For best germination, the soil is recommended to be fertilized. To do this, for every ten square meters, one hundred kilograms of manure or 420 g of superphosphate and 270 g of nitrogen are added. You should not apply all types of fertilizers at once, you should choose between natural and mineral.
The place for planting cucumbers has been prepared since autumn. To do this, the bed is dug up to the depth of a shovel. With the onset of spring, fertilizers are applied.
As the reviews and description of Meringue F1 say, cucumbers can be grown in two ways: by direct seed sowing and through seedlings. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.
Direct sowing saves time and effort, while seedling seedlings harvest the first crop earlier.
Seed preparation
Planting seeds of cucumbers is carried out in late April - early May, when the earth warms up to a temperature of 12-15 degrees. Seeds are pre-treated before sowing. This process is carried out in several stages.
- First you need to separateseeds suitable for sowing. To do this, dissolve a spoonful of s alt in a liter of water. Seeds are placed in this solution. Those that sink to the bottom of the container are washed under running water and used for sowing. The “pacifiers” floating on the surface of the solution are disposed of.
- Before sowing, seeds are disinfected. To do this, prepare a pink solution of potassium permanganate. The seeds are soaked in it for twenty minutes. Then the seed is removed from the solution, washed under running water, and dried.
After processing, sowing can be carried out. To improve the quality of seeds, it is recommended to place them in the refrigerator for a day.
Direct Seeding
Characteristics of F1 meringue cucumber attract gardeners. Early maturity, high yields, ease of care - all this attracts vegetable growers.
With direct sowing of seeds into the ground, holes are prepared with a depth of 2-3 cm. Aisles are left at a distance of 60 cm. 1-2 seeds are laid in these holes. The distance between the holes is 10-15 cm. The seeds are sprinkled with soil. To speed up germination, it is recommended to cover the bed with a film. In such a greenhouse, plants will sprout faster.
After the appearance of the first leaves, the soil is loosened. As soon as the first true leaves appear, weak plants are removed, leaving one bush every 20-30 cm.
At this point, you should feed the plants. To do this, use bird droppings, mullein. For top dressing take a working solution diluted at the rate of 1:5 with water. Cucumbers are watered with the composition: solution consumption - 10 liters per 20 plants. Feeding is repeated after two weeks. Forthe second fertilization, you can apply solutions of mineral fertilizers, diluting 20 grams of s altpeter and the same amount of phosphorus-potassium fertilizer in 10 liters of water.
Seedling method
Growing seedlings has its own characteristics. First, it is planted in containers with a height of at least 10 cm. For sowing, use a ready-made substrate for vegetable seedlings or make the composition yourself by mixing sawdust, peat, humus in a ratio of 1:2:2. For ten kilograms of the composition, two tablespoons of ash and the same amount of nitrophoska are added.
Seeding tanks are two-thirds full. One seed is planted in each pot. As soon as two true leaves appear on the seedlings, they are fed with fertilizer.
After 25 days, the seedlings are planted in a permanent place.
Plant care
To get the declared yield of Meringue F1 cucumber, it is necessary to provide good care to the plants. First you need to organize the right watering.
This culture belongs to moisture-loving plants. Until flowering, 2-3 liters of water will be needed for each square meter. She must be warm. During flowering and fruiting, the abundance of watering increases to five liters per square meter.
Fertilization
Cucumbers are gluttonous plants. To get a good harvest, you need to feed them at least once a week. For this, solutions of naturalfertilizers or minerals.
Good results are shown by the introduction of a mixture of a spoonful of ammonium nitrate, superphosphate, potash fertilizer, diluted in 10 liters of water. As soon as all the components are completely dissolved, 3 grams of iron and 2 grams of boric acid are added to them.
You can use a different composition, prepared from 10 liters of water, a spoonful of urea, half a spoonful of potash fertilizer and the same amount of superphosphate. For 10 square meters you will need 2.5 liters of top dressing.
Formation of bushes
In order for cucumbers to receive enough light, you need to know how to stepchild cucumbers correctly. The procedure begins with the removal of all stepchildren and flowers to a height of up to 50-60 cm. All shoots whose length is more than 2 cm are removed. The lower leaf and the first fruit are removed up to a stem height of 1 m.
The bushes must be tied up. As soon as the whips reach a height of 1.5 m, they are pinched.
Diseases and pests
Cucumber leaves can be used to judge the he alth of a plant. This crop is most often affected by the following diseases:
- Root rot. The disease affects seedlings, adult plants. The reason for its appearance is considered to be poor-quality seeds, planting in too dense soil, watering with cold water. With this disease, the death of the root system is observed. It is necessary to fight the disease by harvesting weeds, as well as by tilling the soil with bleach. All affected bushes are removed.
- With high humidity, cucumbers are affected by whiterot. It provokes the appearance of mucus on the leaves, ovaries, stems. You can overcome the disease by treating the soil with a composition of urea (10 g) and copper sulfate (2 g), diluted in 10 liters of water. Processing is carried out at the rate of 1 liter of solution per 10 square meters of land.
- Anthracnose. With this disease, yellow-brown spots appear on the leaves, common throughout the plant. The fruits darken, wrinkle. For the treatment of plants, the bushes are treated with a solution of bleach prepared from 40 g of a substance diluted in 10 liters of water. If necessary, the product is used again after 10 days.
Typical pests for cucumbers are: whitefly, slugs, aphids, spider mites. To control pests, various preparations offered in the garden store are used. They are bred strictly according to the instructions and the whips are carefully processed. Folk remedies have proven themselves well. For example, to combat aphids, use an infusion of onion peel or garlic, prepared from 200 grams of the product and 10 liters of water. processing is carried out three times with an interval of 5-7 days.
More details about the variety are shown in the video:
Follow preventive measures, and cucumbers will not suffer from pests and diseases. And proper care will help to harvest a large harvest of tasty, juicy and he althy greens for a long period.
