With nothing to compare the taste of a cucumber, plucked from the garden… Its hardness, sometimes prickly “needles”, as if it wants to scare us at last, and then-the crunch, the smell of childhood. In fact, this is a completely different vegetable… Or maybe a fruit, or even a berry?
Over the past decade, the area of garden beds in suburban gardens, especially near large cities, has significantly decreased. Potato plots were overgrown with lawn, carrots and beets were replaced by perennials. Berry bushes that require constant care are replaced with decorative ones, and Apple and pear trees give way to pines, willows and oaks.
Passion for design solutions-flower beds, vegetable gardens, flower beds with aromatic herbs and medicinal herbs-allow you to combine beauty and benefit. So, in the modern garden, traditional greens are still preserved: dill, parsley, celery, salads, horseradish. The latter, by the way, has become, among other things, a fashionable plant to match Hosta. In a single landing in a lighted place, horseradish can compete in decorativeness with other perennial herbaceous plants, and even bloom – Northern Yucca.
And here go the owners of such a garden, see dill, horseradish, an old black currant Bush… All this is something subtly reminiscent, some associations, like in a fairy tale, where Gerda walks in the garden, and there is not a single rose. And only when the dill blooms with a fragrant yellow umbrella, they will immediately remember why it blooms at all – for brine! This means that there are not enough cucumbers in the garden! In the end, you can buy salt for salting, but how can you not enjoy your own, fresh?
We are building a tower!
Cucumber tower or city-as anyone can-can become both a dacha fun, and a mini-plant for the production of cucumbers.
This will require little space, a lot of sun, regular watering, as well as special equipment. These include:
- fencing (to taste: welded galvanized iron mesh, wattle, boards, picket fence, stone, etc.),
- geotextile,
- fertile soil,
- film,
- cucumber seeds or seedlings,
- inspiration.
An empty space in the garden (1-3 sq. m) — a patch of sunlight-can be found both in the back and in the front part of the garden. In any case, the tower will be an interesting object of landscape design.
Last year, we made a similar structure in the garden of our good friends, who really missed their cucumbers.
Only construction materials were specifically used in the design, which made it possible to quickly assemble the tower and, if necessary, also quickly disassemble it. So, everything in order.
1. The basis of design took galvanized welded mesh. It wants to curl itself into rings and cylinders. We took advantage of this: we rolled several cylinders of different diameters and heights. The fastening of the net is very convenient electrical clamps.
2. Lining the walls with a stock of geotextile. We used black, but it is in the strong sun promotes heating and faster evaporation of moisture. That for cucumbers, actually, is not bad, as long as there is water.
3. Fill the ground, tamp it down. Then we put the next one on the larger diameter cylinder — and so on. Water the soil.
It is necessary to observe the verticality of the structure, so that it does not collapse. To fix the edge of the fabric on the upper end of the mesh cylinders and protect the plants from sharp grating, the edge was formed by a pipe cut along the HDPE, which with its elasticity solved all the problems of the side at once.
4. Plant cucumbers, make a cocoon of film, fixing it with strong clothespins. In one place, the film is easily opened for watering.
5. as the growth of cucumbers were substituted willow sticks, in some places the plants were tied up, giving them the direction of development.
What is the result? Results and our conclusions
The variety of cucumbers we planted was beautiful in all respects: delicious, prickly, abundant. The disadvantage that we did not take into account in the creative impulse, can be attributed to his persistent desire to grow only up one lash, and we would like to go down.
That is, the cascading cascade of cucumber tops we immediately began to get under the influence of gravity of fruits and leaves, and not due to the property of cucumbers to grow down. Because of this, they suffered a little: only cling to the tendrils grow up, and from above others fall on their heads with their cucumbers. Next time we will try to plant so-called balcony varieties that develop downwards and immediately branch out.
The irrigation system also needs to be improved. Sweating under the film until almost the end of June, the plants do not need daily watering. But already in the open air, when fruiting in July, you need to water abundantly, carefully monitor the entire system.
Best of all, in our opinion, would be a simple capillary irrigation system, made during planting and ensuring that the tower is watered on all tiers strictly under the root. Such a system will consist of rings by the number of tiers bent from the hose. We drill holes in them with a diameter of 1-2 mm in 10-20 cm. Connect it to the General water main. The water should be lukewarm, we have it heated in the supply hose of a fairly long length.
The tower or any other structure should be made, taking into account the fact that there will be a permanent shadow on the North side, and the cucumbers will be uncomfortable, although we have curled some lashes on the North side.
Also, we always encourage you to do everything fun and together with your children. But here there is a small exception: children and untrained adults recklessly and carelessly collect cucumbers, pull and trample the lashes. The safety of the lash is the key to long-term fruiting. So take care of the cucumbers — and enjoy your meal!
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