Cucumbers

Cukes love warm and well drained soil and do particularly well in raised beds if you have them. Add a generous handful of organic fertilizer into the planting holes when transplanting.

This veggie needs lots of nutrition and water and warmth. It is best to keep soil evenly moist and to water at soil level to prevent the leaves from getting too wet as they may be prone to mildew. Once the plants begin to fruit watch for and remove malformed or shrivelled fruits and pick the good fruits often to encourage better production. If you leave the fruit to grow too large the production will slow down.

For best results give your cucumber plants a trellis or fence and let them grow vertically. This frees up garden space for other veggies and allows the fruit to hang which tends to produce straighter cucumbers than those left to sprawl along the ground.

Plant your cucumbers near Dill as this works to attract predatory insects away. This also simplifies your harvest when it comes time to start making amazing homemade dill pickles!!