A step-by-step guide to growing bagged cucumbers on a loggia and vegetable garden

Growing cucumbers in bags is suitable for any area. This method is convenient in that a mobile bed can be equipped in any corner of the garden or vegetable garden, and next year it can be moved to another place. You can grow cucumbers in packages on a balcony or loggia - or you can install them in a greenhouse, next to other plants.

By step-by-step the creation of a bed of bags, you can reduce the need to care for cucumbers throughout the growing season.

Bag selection

Sugar or cereal bags are suitable for planting cucumbers. The material from which they are made has a weave that allows air and moisture to pass through. This is important for growing cucumbers: the soil will not overheat in the heat, the roots will be able to breathe, and when watering, excess water will drain off without additional drainage holes. Next year, such packages can be reused. After harvesting, the soil is poured out of them, and the bags are dried. They should not be left outdoors for the winter.

Advice

Debris bags, which are inexpensive and sold in building material stores or hypermarkets, have the same properties.

Instead of sugar bags, you can use others.

• Garbage bags are suitable (they can be of any color, when choosing it is important to pay attention to the strength).
• If you have unnecessary durable polyethylene, you can make the bags yourself. To do this, it is folded in half, and the sections are glued with tape. For reliability, the bag is glued with tape around the circumference in several places.

For air access in such bags, several holes must be made. They can be pierced with any sharp object. These bags are not suitable for re-growing cucumbers.

Planting cucumbers in bags depends on the volume. If the package is 50 liters, then one plant is planted. Two roots can be grown in a 100 liter bag.

Filling bags with soil

Before filling the bags with earth, you need to choose a place where the mobile garden will be located. They are filled immediately on the spot, because heavy bags of soil are difficult to transfer, they can break.

Advice

Although bagged cucumbers can be grown anywhere in the garden, the needs of the plants must be taken into account. The best place for cucumbers is sunny, but with light shade in the midday heat. If there is no such place, then artificial shading will be required in the heat.

To grow cucumbers, you need a nutritious soil. It is unprofitable to fill large bags with such soil, therefore, most of them are filled with plant waste.

• The lowest layer, which is 2/4 of the total volume, is hay, grass cuttings, leaf litter, food debris, and unrecoverable compost. If the bag has a large volume, the lower part can even be filled with fresh manure. The roots of cucumbers will not grow to it, and a warm and humid environment will help it decompose quickly, after which it can be used for next year's beds. For better roasting, manure must be mixed with a small amount of ordinary soil.
• The middle layer, ¼ of the volume - compost or rotted manure, which will provide the cucumbers with the necessary nutrition.
• The top layer, ¼ of the volume - is filled with loose garden soil.

Support for cucumber lashes

For support, you will need a pole or pipe about two meters long. Install it in the middle of the bag, deepening for stability to the very bottom.

At the top of the pole, an attachment must be provided for tying twine or fishing line.These can be notches, screws screwed in to the middle, or nails driven in half. The garter is carried out when the cucumber lashes grow to the desired size. In the future, their antennae will be attached to the string themselves.

Important!

The support for the cucumbers in the bag must be installed in advance so as not to damage the roots in the future.

You can reduce the cost of purchasing support pipes if you build a kind of U-shaped support, one for several bags installed side by side.

Three pipes are required:

• two vertical ones are installed in the outer bags or in the soil next to them;
• the third pipe is attached horizontally to them.

The support line should be tied to the upper horizontal support.

In addition, you need to prepare wooden or metal pegs. They are stuck in the ground next to the bag and a fishing line is tied to them.

Irrigation system

How the cucumber plantings will be watered must be thought out before planting the plants. If watering is carried out in the usual way - from a watering can or a hose - then additional equipment will not be required.

For drip irrigation, a plastic pipe with a diameter of 2-3 cm is needed.The length of the pipe should be 20 cm greater than the height of the bag.On the part that will be deepened into the soil, several holes are drilled at intervals of 15 cm.One bag will require two pipes that are needed install at some distance from the support.

In addition, adapters are additionally needed that will connect the irrigation pipes with the main hose for water supply.

When growing cucumbers on the balcony, pallets must be installed under the bags, into which excess moisture will drain.

Planting cucumbers

There are different methods of growing cucumbers in bags: you can create your own mini-garden either by seedling method or by sowing seeds directly into a bag.

Sowing seeds in a bag requires covering the plantings with cellophane to retain moisture and heat. If the support is installed in a package, then this method is inconvenient. In this case, it is best to plant grown seedlings.

Seeds for seedlings are sown in early May, each seed in a separate glass. Disembarkation in bags takes place at the end of May. By this time, 3-4 true leaves grow on each seedling, and stable warm weather sets in the street.

Important!

A day before planting seedlings, the soil in bags must be shed abundantly.

When planting seedlings, you must try not to disturb the root system. The seedlings can be planted deeper than they grew in the cup. Cucumbers have the ability to grow internode roots. The more roots grow, the more food and moisture will be supplied to the plant.

Planted plants are not watered for several days. Young seedlings must be protected from the scorching rays of the sun. For this, a thin white covering material is suitable, the density of which is 15 or 17 g / m² .

For shading, you can use the "grandmother's" method. From any tree with large leaves, they break off several branches and stick them into the soil next to the plant. After the foliage dries up, the branches are removed.

Caring for bagged cucumbers

Care for cucumber plantings in the package is simple:

• weeding of weeds is minimal, because there are no roots of perennial weeds in the soil;
• there is no need for loosening, because the bags "breathe";
• watering is carried out less often than on ordinary beds, because the moisture does not evaporate for a long time;
• if the bag was filled with nutrient soil, then feeding during the entire growing season is not necessary.

When watering, you need to pay attention to the fact that the soil surface may be dry, but there is still enough moisture inside. Although cucumbers are moisture-loving plants, constant excess water is harmful to them.

To determine the need for watering, several holes must be made in the bag at different heights. It is only by tactile sensations that you can understand whether it is time for watering or you still need to wait.

Advice

To slightly balance the soil moisture on the surface and inside the bag, the soil can be mulched.Suitable for this hay, grass cuttings, sawdust or last year's leaf litter.

In early fall, the soil should be poured into a compost heap or garden bed for growing other vegetables the following year.

So, the method of growing in a package is beneficial not only because it allows you to arrange plantings anywhere on the site. The big advantage is that this method is uncomplicated and the care for the cucumbers is minimal.