Wombats Garden: As the year draws on I am going to write a few posits about my garden and what I have found. You may be an avid gardener and may not agree with what I say. If you dont that is fine but share with us what you know. But be nice or I shall poke my tongue at you. :p Today I am writing about ### cucumbers , a crop I hate to grow because ever year the results have been very mixed at best. 1.This year started out as no exception. The heat meant the seedlings either did not germinate or when they appeared they wilted.But those that I have got to maturity have done very well. Because the weather started to cool and I use Yates pickling cumber seed , a reliable variety that grows a good ratio of female flowers to male flowers. 2. did not trellis the plants rather built hills about 50cm 2 high. I mulched these when I could to cool the soil down and allow water to percolate deep into the soil. I also fertilised the soil with abroad spectrum organic fertiliser, something the books said not to do but the vies have been prolific anyway. 3. I had problems with the size of the cucumber because once the fruit starts it gains size very quickly. I managed to obtain the right size of cucumber by inspecting the plants twice a day but there were still some fruits I did not notice because growing cucumbers without a trellis means you cannot easily seen them. The size required is 100 mm to 150 long and about 30mm across, an ideal that is hard to attain. Cucumbers have to ferment whole and fit into jars. Otherwise they are salad food. 4. Thank you bees without you we would have no crop. 5, When the cucumbers are heavily infested with sooty mould and virus infection. I will pull them up and rotate them with either snow peas of sunflowers. Both have edible parts and condition the soil with green manure or nitrogen. Toowoomba soil is wonderful but it is often very leached ( red soil) and very short on organic matter so growing these things is beneficial to hold nutrients and add humus to the soil. The hay from legumes ( peas grown and died off) is good for mulching. 5. For my nest I am going write about the attack of the killer tomatoes, tom thumbs actually. Pictures when I can get this dagnabbit camera to take photees. :P
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 06:27:50 +0000
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