Growing Gardens

with Julia Hancock

Keep Cool with Cucumbers

A salad just isn't a salad without cucumbers, and if you've got a patch of ground that's not being used over the summer months, there's still time to sow a few seeds.

There is a wide variety of cucumbers to grow from seed to suit every culinary purpose. For instance the 'Long Green' is wonderful for slicing thin for sandwiches while the 'Salad Bush' is good for small gardens. If you have trouble digesting cucumbers, try the 'Richmond Green Apple' which is low in acid, or the burpless varieties. If you fancy pickling your own to enjoy over the cooler months, there are several gherkin types which are excellent for preserving. If you prefer buying seedlings rather than starting from scratch with seeds there are enough varieties to suit most gardeners.

Cucumbers grow really quickly once the weather warms up, and are greedy for both food and water, so in order to satisfy their needs the soil you plant them in needs to be extra rich and fertile. This means forking in as much compost as you can spare and tossing in some pelletised poultry manure or granular complete fertiliser before you plant. As the seedlings grow and start to develop fruit, plump them up with fortnightly applications of soluble fertiliser.

Moisture levels are critical when growing cucumbers and it's important to keep the roots moist at all times. However, cucumbers are susceptible to powdery mildew, a fungal disease which is encouraged by allowing the foliage to become damp, especially at night. So drip or trickle irrigation is best to avoid the spread of this unpleasant blight.

If your plants don't set fruit you may have to hand pollinate. Using a small brush remove some of the pollen from the male flower and gently brush it onto the centre of the female flower (ie. the flowers with a tiny cucumber at their base).

Lismore Garden Club News

The Club and Summerland Coaches are doing a Hunter Valley tour, March 30 - April 2. Anyone can go and you don't have to be a member of the garden club. The tour costs 370pp twin share (single supp $100), inc. luxury coach, motel, three breakfasts and dinners, plus one lunch. Phone Mary Betteridge on 6621 5293.

It's getting too hot to plant much in the vegie garden now. If you have a good size vegie patch with nothing in it, the best thing you can do with it is to plant 'super sweet' sweet corn in a block planting with cucumber and/or pumpkins through it. Corn and cucurbits are great companions and the corn gives the vines shade from the summer sun. By now most of your herbs have bolted to seed and should be re-planted. Seedlings will need watering daily until established. After they have been planted for a week, fertilise with half-strength liquid fertiliser.

Gardening tip

Remember, when you pull out flowers, herbs or vegies, which have gone to seed, scatter the ripened seed around your garden. These will germinate in autumn. Self-sown seedlings are often the best and they cost nothing.

Happy gardening
Ron Burns