5+ Tips for Growing Cucumbers in Containers: Epsom Salt, Feeding, Dusts, Sprays & More

welcome to the rested guard and today I'm going to go over five tips on how to have an extremely successful container cucumber garden we're going to start at the bottom and container mix is really the key you want at least 50% peat moss mixed in air or cocoa core a combination of both the set up of the soil I have in other videos but it's at least 50% peat moss coco coir because you want your containers to hold moisture and then I mix into their worm castings organic fertilizer and just get it set up but today I'm going to show you how I use Epsom salt the water-soluble fertilizer I use and we'll talk about tips for cleaning the undersides for spider mites using peppermint spray and ways to really keep up production let me show you just how well these guys are doing this is national pickling it's two plants in about a 10 gallon container for cucumbers five six one to be picked right up there seven eight nine ten back there and as we work a way up there are more smaller ones so the setup that I use really works and I'm going to cover all the pieces to it one thing I want to show you that a lot of people don't know is the vines will actually root so when you start getting some runners that are coming up lay them along the surface because they will establish they will set up roots let me show you an example over here and you can see right down there how the roots are forming from other parts of the vine and that just puts in more roots into the ground and gives your plant a little bit of strength now container cucumbers are different than your ground plants there's no real ecosystem in here like your earth beds soil biology is important and then there is life in here but you don't have to worry about using Epsom salt chemical fertilizers things that you might be concerned might damage your soil life because you're growing in containers and I'll go over all that in a second but let me just show you all the roots that is the complete roots there it fills the cucumbers fill every almost ounce of space in there with roots so they really suck down the water they really suck down the chemical fertilizers they really suck down the organic fertilizers the Epsom salt they use it so containers are different and you have to keep a supply of all the fertilizers in there so we have two vines in here that's the National pickling that I just showed you coming over here is a space master this is about a five gallon as a self watering container actually picked one off of there another one getting ready we have two smaller ones right there and there's probably more cucumbers around that this one was planted a couple weeks after that plant but you can just see the massive amounts of flowers now here's a tip to if you ever see a cucumber start growing the tip gets brown that's not usually a problem with nutrition it's just that it didn't get fertilized so that can happen sometimes over on this side I have my pick a bushel this is a 2014 all-america selections winner I've been picking a lot of cucumbers out of there already and you can just see the number of cucumbers that are coming off of there two plants in there also and as long as you keep them fed and watered and have a nice container mix with at least again 50% peat moss coco coir for holding water you can grow two cucumber plants in a space like this okay let's talk about Epsom salt so I'm going to show you how I use these different products I'll do a top dressing to show you how to take the leaves off that's one thing that I did soon as we got out of this crazy rain we had here remove leaves that are yellow look diseased and just go over how you can maintain production of your cucumber plants for an entire season first thing I want to talk about is Epsom salt Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate it's considered organic by most people and the way that I use it is I put in one to two tablespoons per gallon of water this is a two gallon container I use Epsom salt more early in my container plants because the ecosystem the microbe the soil biology is very very different I'm not trying to maintain soil biology here I do out in my regular garden out in a regular garden I recommend not using magnesium sulfate more than twice a year it's a little bit been overused and you know considered the qrl for everything it's not it's a micronutrient magnesium and sulfur or micronutrients so by adding in the Epsom salt you're adding in magnesium and you're adding in sulfur and you saw the root systems in here containers really take the soil life container plants really take the soil life out of your container mix so you want to add it in so two gallons here I actually put in three tablespoons you can use one to two tablespoon per gallon I would do this once a month with your cucumber container plants and this is all I do I want to show you how much I put in you don't need to overdo it you just sort have to eyeball it where you think you put in enough water for it to drain down to the bottom you don't want it to be pouring out because you're just wasting fertilizer that way let it sink in I do this on opposite days when I put in the plant food the water soluble plant food I feed my cucumber plants about every 10 to 14 days they're getting it more often now because they're getting to size and I do Epsom salt by itself I don't mix all of these together now you need to set up a schedule kind of markdown they're 10 to 14 days what you want to use opposite waterings opposite 10 days opposite 14 days you go to the water soluble fertilizer we're going to do a top dressing in a second this is organic you can use an organic fertilizer a lot of times the NPK the main micronutrients for the organic fertilizers stay well below a 5 5 5 your container cucumbers typically need more than that so if you're using an organic fertilizer with a lower n P and K you really want to probably use this every 7 to 10 days when the plants get to size and ideas when they're smaller they don't need as much so you fertilize less but these are getting up to size so I would do regularly my organic fertilizers every seven to ten days and then once a month yep I use the chemical fertilizers they are not toxic to you they're not toxic to your plants they are just made by human beings like you and me they're processed everything is a chemical your organics are chemical your processed fertilizers this has a higher in P and K this is fifteen thirty fifteen your cucumber plants will love it I use it once a week I'm sorry not that often I use it once a month and I will just replace a watering at some point with this with the organic fertilizer you don't need to overdo it now that's kind of high so I cut it in half trying to be around the seven fifteen seven so this is one tablespoon per gallon of water I put in a half a tablespoon and this mix of Epsom salt organic fertilizers and once a month the chemical fertilizers the processed fertilizers really keep your cucumber plants in containers producing that's what you want that's the whole goal now I also do a top dressing and again remember this is the cucumber plants are packing the container mix the soil with nothing but roots so you really need to keep them fed for a top dressing so if I can do this left-handed I use an organic fertilizer try and stay around five five five this is a three four six three nitrogen for Maria and P for fosters and six potassium and we're gonna pause a second I can't open this alright got it open so this is the same fertilizer I used to set up the soil that's about a tablespoon and output maybe six to eight tablespoons and they're setting up the starting mix about once a month you want a top dress your containers with a granular organic fertilizer and that's just a matter of sprinkling in about a tablespoon or two around the top of the plant let's put that one in there that's right and then after you do this you would just water it in and get everything going the organic fertilizers that come in the granular form or slow-release they need to break down over time the water soluble fertilizers are fast-acting the plants can actually absorb that right away so you're dropping this in about once a month every four to six weeks however you want to do it one two tablespoons right across the top nothing fancy that will keep your plants fed and healthy and growing okay let's get to managing the spider mites with Jets of water so a couple things on watering and then we'll get to spraying to control insects after you put down your top dressing and in the heat of the summer when you have you know your full Heat you're going to want to water these probably every day if not every other day never let your contain your plants completely dry out that will do huge damage to the plant system and it's good to really diminish your production so after you put the top dressing down you really want to soak it in and you cut want to let the water run here 5 10 seconds and you want to get it to the point where it drains out the hole down on the bottom and whenever you grow anything in containers make sure you have a drainage hole because if water sits in there and doesn't drain it's gonna rot the plant roots and that's just as bad as letting the entire container dry out so we watered in the top dressing and over time as you water as and it rains it will move nutrients into the soil spider mites a fits they're weak so if you wash them off the bottom of your planned leaves they're gonna fall to the ground and you're not gonna really reestablish and what happens as spider mites they start at the bottom they do their thing they multiply and they work their way up so when you're near watering just take water and spray the underside leave it three times a week and as you do it look for bugs like you can see right back here I just dropped it it'll come back that was where is it there he is let's get him that's a squash bug crush him get rid of them and I can also look around for the squash bugs eggs though so they're gonna be on zucchinis and cucumbers but when you spray underneath you're going to find your cucumber beetles squash bugs here the eggs this is the other thing you want to be doing and inspect right there right above next to my thumb those are squash bug eggs rub them off so by spraying the underside you're removing spider mites wheat harmful insects you're locating squash bugs cucumber beetles and you're looking for any kind of eggs that are on there and that will really keep the health of your cucumber plants going I'm also gonna show you how to put dust on here you can use chemical dust you can use organic dust but any kind of dust you use can harm the beneficial insects so you don't want a dust where the flowers are I'll show you how you put it on the outer leaves and it really really works all right let's get to cutting the leaves and I'll show you the right way to do that cucumber plants can regrow leaves and they're going to constantly put out side shoots and vines and everything like that so as your spring underneath of course before you get started harvest everything just get them out of the way and right there again those are the squash bug eggs from the bug that I squashed you want to look around for those regularly every time you come out in the garden turn the leaves over and get rid of those to remove a leaf it's pretty straightforward find a leaf that looks beat up you can take some leaves from the bottom if you want air circulation going it also makes it easier to get in there and spray and look for insects but just take it back to the main vine and cut it off you want to go look through the leaves any leaves it looks mostly green it's good to go take a look at this one you can see tears spotting in there so just follow it back and then snip it out now of course is easier the tendrils latched on is easier with two hands same thing look around this one's kind of got spotting on there kind of beat up just find where it goes to the main vine and cut it off now when you damage the leaves or you cut the leaves or if nature breaks the leaves or the vine it puts out a scent and a lot of insects follow the scent of plants and that's where they come to feed and do their thing a damage plant is easy to get into for them for them to get a drink of whatever the SAP get into the vine if they're that kind of insect or just know that they're there and then that's where they come and they start their lifecycle so when you cut them there's a chance of course the pheromones the odor is going to attract insects one thing that I've been doing for the last couple of years is using peppermint spray on the undersides of the leaves to mask the scent I'll show you how I set that up and do that so just to recap I watch the undersides of the leaves two or three times a week I do inspect for bugs regularly when I do cut leaves about and this is what I use just a basic spray bottle you can put it in a 1 gallon sprayer if you have a lot of plants maybe about twice a week I'll get in this is peppermint oil and I just spray the underside just like that you can spray the soil too and then you're done nothing fancy just get the mint the peppermint oil on the undersides I use one drop per 2 ounces of water maybe 2 drops sometimes I will link the recipe that I use and that will put that peppermint oil underneath that masks the scent of the cucumber plant I also found and believe that peppermint oil irritates or repels spider mites it doesn't kill them off but it really irritates them they're used to living under here in a nice cushy environment adding in the peppermint oil you know makes a difference and again it doesn't harm beneficial insects just get in there and spray I do sell peppermint oil at my seed shop and this whole spray system this is a high-volume sprayer that's a nice mist and this is a spray bottle that lists the ounces in there that will be up on my seat up in about a week or two that's all you need to do two times a week and that helps manage the plants alright let's cover a couple more things and then we'll wrap up this is the general care that I use to take care of my cucumber plants and containers

Channel: Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden)

Views: 1,302,328

Rating: 4.8628931 out of 5

Keywords: Vegetable, Gardening, Organic, Container, cucumbers

Id: 37dSuSDgukE

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 05 2018