Cultivation of cucumbers, like any other agricultural crop, has its own characteristics. This vegetable is quite whimsical, it is very demanding on the presence of a comfortable air temperature and constant optimal soil moisture. Therefore, gardeners, summer residents, farmers are constantly looking for effective ways to cultivate this crop. One of the directions is the use of vertical beds. Moreover, many owners of household plots and vegetable gardens are interested in such a topic as a vertical garden for cucumbers, equipped with their own hands.
Pros of vertical beds
First one question needs to be answered. What are the advantages of a vertical cucumber bed? First of all, of course, saving the space of the land, when instead of the horizontal capture of the necessary surface, the bed uses the vertical direction for the development of planted plants. Fruits ripening on such a bed do not come into contact with the ground. An experienced vegetable grower, summer resident, amateur knows that cucumbers on a vertical bed are well protected from decay, particle pollutionsoil, rodent encroachments. Soil fertilization also becomes safer (i.e. the fertilizer will not come into contact with the fruit). The uniform ripening of fruits is ensured, the conditions for caring for the plantation become more comfortable. In some cases, it becomes possible to create a convenient or even automatic irrigation system.
Types of vertical beds
A vertical cucumber bed is, in fact, a structure that can have a wide variety of designs. Sometimes these are plastic bags, bags, hanging bottles placed in a certain order on a vertical surface (wall, shield, partition, net). In other cases, a vertical bed for cucumbers is cut plastic pipes with closed ends suspended under crossbars or beams, wooden containers, plastic 5-liter containers from under water, also cut along the axis. Vertical beds also include various types of trellis, located in the form of a tent, walls. One of the simplest options is a plastic mesh stretched from the bottom up or obliquely. A special kind of structures are pipes dug vertically into the ground with holes. Such a vertical cucumber bed can be combined with trellises or hanging containers. Pretty simple, even primitive, structures made of metal or plastic barrels, original designs made from old furniture, where cucumbers are planted in the ground, covered in extended drawers of tables, chests of drawers, cabinets, etc.
How to make a verticalcucumber bed? More on that later.
Grid
The first option is to use the grid as a base, for which the tendrils of the growing stems will cling. A vertical cucumber bed created with netting is an attractive low cost option that is efficient and does not require gigantic labor.
Grids are sold in special stores for summer residents and gardeners. You can make them yourself from fishing line. The main thing is that the mesh must be either made of fishing line or plastic, metal is not allowed! The reason is that when heated in the sun, the metal wire can cause burns on the leaves of plants.
Planting cucumbers in vertical beds is easy. The soil must be enriched before planting. Organic fertilizers are applied in spring or autumn, mineral fertilizers should be scattered a month before sowing cucumbers or planting seedlings. Cucumbers on a vertical mesh bed will take up little space, the sun will be enough for them, it is very convenient to collect them!
Plastic bags
Another easy option is to use canvas or plastic bags containing potting soil. The easiest way is a plastic bag, but it is also the most short-lived - only for one season.
Bags for this bed should have a volume of about 100-120 liters, garbage ones are also suitable, as well as home-made ones, if you are very unlucky and ready-made bags you will not come across on sale.
You will also need a two-meter stick withnotches for fishing line, plastic tubes (hose cuts) with a diameter of up to 3 cm and a length greater than the height of the package each, fishing line (skein of at least 30 m), a dozen pegs.
The land for filling the bags must be prepared well, the ideal option is to buy the soil mix in the store.
Then put the plastic bag back in place. A stick is installed (simply stuck) in the center of the bag, and three plastic tubes are pre-perforated into the bag; they should not touch the stick. The ends of the tubes should stick out of the bag. The whole structure is reinforced with pegs. After making cuts in the bags, fill them with earth. After pouring water into the pipes, the earth will be moistened. Further, watering the beds should be done through these tubes. Through the cuts in the bag, the moisture content of the soil inside is determined, since the dry top layer of the earth cannot serve as an indicator of a lack of moisture. Cucumbers do not like both drought and waterlogging.
After the appearance of the antennae, wrap them around the fishing line, then everything will go by itself.
The advantage of this method is that on the plot the cucumber crop ripens earlier than on ordinary beds, the cucumber tree decorates the plot, watering is done once a week, additional feeding is not required. And plus - all the same savings in usable space.
Pipes
Growing cucumbers is also possible in vertical beds in the form of pipes, although these methods are less common, they are mainly used for growing flowers, for berries (primarily strawberries), greens.
Here we can highlight the use of pipes in two directions. The first direction - perforated plastic pipes are installed vertically into the soil. Sewer pipes from plumbing stores are most suitable for this. Sometimes a smaller diameter tube runs inside a large pipe, which serves to organize the irrigation system. The pipe is buried in the soil for a third of its length for the stability of the structure. Soil is poured into the pipe from above, you can pre-mix it with seeds. But you can plant the seeds in the soil and through the holes in the pipe. Cucumber seedlings can also be planted through these holes. Vertical pipes, placed in a row, can play the role of a partition between different zones and beds of the garden, the walls of the gazebo, or serve as a fence around the site.
The second direction is also a vertical bed, but the pipes are horizontal! How? They just take plastic pipes, cut them into scraps (however, you don’t have to do cross cutting, just the hanging bed will be long), each scrap is cut lengthwise into two halves, and restrictive walls are placed at the ends. The resulting gutters are hung on crossbars, tree branches, gazebos, even on the visor of the house. The suspension is made with the help of a rope, fishing line, rope, wire. It can be multi-tiered, the length of the gutters is chosen independently. Soil is placed in each, seedlings are planted.
Instead of tubular chutes, you can use hanging plastic containers, cut five-liter plastic containers, wooden boxes.
Vertical bed of tires
This scheme is very common among summer residents due to its simplicity and smalllabor intensity of creation.
Old car tires are taken in the amount of 3-5 pcs. They can be the same size, but they don't have to be. They are stacked on top of each other sequentially, as their internal space is filled with soil with top dressing. If flowers or greens can be planted with seeds mixed with the ground, then planting cucumbers in vertical beds is carried out in specially cut holes, where the seedlings are placed. It turns out a multi-level structure that adds variety to the landscape of the site.
An interesting variant of this technique: not 3-5 old tires are used, but much more - up to 12 pieces! With a hammer and a chisel, from 10 to 12 holes are applied to them on the surface in contact with the road. Inside, the tires are 5-7 cm filled with a mixture of compost or manure with earth, ordinary soil is poured on top. Tires are stacked vertically on top of each other. Cucumber seeds are planted in the holes, 3 pcs. Seeds are recommended to be kept in the refrigerator for 6-7 hours before soaking.
When shoots appear, it is necessary to remove weak plants, leaving the most viable ones. After the appearance of the lashes, foam rubber is placed under them to protect the latter from breaking.
It is good to water through a perforated pipe inserted inside the tires, but you can get by with a primitive watering can.
Vertical bed from a barrel
A more interesting option for a greenhouse, conditionally it can be called a "barrel-pipe", where the main element is wooden, metal orplastic barrel. It is necessary to make a series of holes for seedlings, rectangular or round in shape. Holes on the surface of the barrel must be placed in rows horizontally, the intervals between rows are 20 cm.
Then the feeder is prepared - a metal pipe about 1520 cm long and with an internal diameter of about 4 to 6 cm. The side surface of the pipe is perforated: holes with a diameter of 4 or 5 mm are drilled in it. A funnel is fixed at the upper end of the pipe. The lower end of the feed pipe is plugged with a wooden plug or clay-cement mortar.
The finished pipe is fixed on a wooden cross. Burlap is wrapped around the pipe to prevent earth from clogging the holes.
The place in the greenhouse where this structure will be installed is leveled and compacted. A barrel is placed there with a feed pipe installed inside. Clay and fine gravel are placed at the bottom so as not to close the bottom row of holes. Then the internal volume of the structure is filled with the substrate. Seedlings are planted both in the side holes and on the upper surface of the barrel. By the way, a small note: seedlings are planted in the side holes with their roots down, as the substrate subsides, the correct orientation of the roots will be restored.
A simpler barrel option: soil mixture is placed in a container without any tricks, seeds or seedlings of cucumbers are planted under a film, later wire arcs are installed, to which shoots are then attached. This type of vertical bed does not have all the advantages characteristic of this technology, but it is simple, unpretentious and quite allows you to collectmore or less acceptable early harvest of cucumbers. By the way, the shoots hanging down beautifully mask the barrel.
Other varieties of vertical beds
Giving a second chance for old kitchen furniture to serve its owners, some summer residents use it to create vertical beds. But this method is rarely used for growing cucumbers, as it is not as effective as others.
To obtain a good harvest of cucumbers in extreme conditions, the use of trellises is required - wooden (metal, plastic) lattices, slats, walls, slingshots, between which horizontally stretched, inclined wire or twine strings are stretched in several rows. Here again, the property of cucumbers is used to attach with antennae and lashes to supports and stretch upwards. Again, wooden slats can be used instead of string.
Some unexpected examples of creating vertical beds. These can be stalks of corn or sunflower! If, in addition to cucumbers, you plant coriander, radishes around corn (to attract beneficial insects, for the same purpose, you can add cosmea flowers to the garden, or, as it is also called, cosmos). Another unexpected example: cucumbers are planted around the pipe, but instead of trellises or nets, hop sprouts are used as a support for cucumbers, lovers of this method assure that the yield increases quite noticeably in such a bed.
Conclusion
The article does not cover all the details of the topic,due to the immensity of this direction, but to the question of how to grow cucumbers on a vertical bed, it basically gives the minimum necessary answer.
Vertical beds, of course, are suitable for growing not only cucumbers, this is a fairly universal direction. Moreover, this technology is also applicable for decorative purposes, when containers with flowers and grass, effectively placed on walls, racks, trellises, pipes, transform the area in the country house or in front of the cottage, turning it into a truly paradise. But this is a topic for other articles.
And one more note. Vertical beds provide especially many opportunities for realizing creative potential to summer residents. Planting cucumbers in vertical beds, although it has its own characteristics, does not present any difficulties. Getting pleasure from the results of their work, a summer resident or an amateur vegetable grower is forced to solve many problems, use improvised materials. The aesthetics of the site are not alien to him either. In addition, the experience and knowledge of neighbors is at his service.
Undoubtedly, everything said in this article about such a concept as a do-it-yourself vertical garden for cucumbers is of particular relevance for small greenhouses, where the issue of a shortage of usable space is very acute.
It's great that some of the methods described here are also suitable for growing cucumbers on the balcony of a city apartment!
