For spacing, allow three to four feet between vining cucumbers growing on the ground, one foot between cucumbers growing on vertical supports, and two to three feet between bush types of cucumbers.
Tools You’ll Need for Growing Cucumbers
Caring for Your Cukes
Once established, cucumbers grow fast and are relatively easy garden vegetable to care for. That doesn’t mean you can just ignore them, though! Here’s what to do to care for your cukes:
Water regularly: Consistent moisture will keep your plants healthy and turn out cucumbers that are less bitter. Aim to give your plants at least an inch of water each week, and more during extremely hot stretches. Also, water cucumbers at their bases, keeping the leaves dry. (A soaker hose is ideal here.) Doing this helps prevent powdery mildew from setting in.
Mulch around the base: Add a layer of mulch or straw at the base of cucumber plants to keep the soil warm and moist, and to deter pests.
Keep an eye out for pests: Check your plants and growing cucumbers for pests like slugs, cucumber beetles or powdery mildew. Catching these early will give you the best chance of keeping plants healthy.
Harvesting Your Cucumbers
Pick your cucumbers often, as soon as they reach a usable size and before seeds are fully formed inside. To harvest cucumbers, get out your garden shears and snip the stem close to the top of the vegetable. Resist the urge to just rip the cucumbers off the vine, because this could damage the plant.
Tips for Growing the Best and Tastiest Cucumbers
Attract pollinators
Cucumber plants produce male and female flowers, and you need pollinators to get pollen from one to the other to grow cucumbers. Encourage bees and other beneficial insects to visit your garden: plant some of their favorite flowers nearby and limit your use of pesticides that hurt pollinators. The Old Farmer’s Almanac suggests spraying cucumber vines with a sugar-water solution to help attract bees!
Plant sunflowers for sweeter cukes
Seasoned gardeners know the benefits of planting companion vegetables: plants that actually help each other grow better.
Gardeners have discovered that cucumbers taste sweeter when they’re planted next to sunflowers. Why is this? Cucumbers have natural compounds, cucurbitacins, that can create a bitter flavor, and these compounds can increase if plants are stressed from drought or temperature. Sunflowers seem to help by releasing an enzyme called elastase that neutralizes cucurbitacins. Sunflowers can also serve as climbing support for smaller varieties of cucumbers, whose vines will twine up the stalks.
Harvest often
Because cucumber plants grow fast and can be prolific, you may find yourself picking cucumbers every few days! But since cucumbers picked earlier are sweeter, it’s definitely worth it. And the more you pick, the more cucumbers your plants will give you.
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