Many people like homemade, fresh and crunchy, speckled green cucumbers. The beds with this vegetable can be found in almost every country house or in the courtyard of a private house. In order to protect cucumbers from diseases and get a good harvest, they are most often grown in garter. In this article we will look at ways of tying cucumbers on a bed in an open ground, as well as in a greenhouse or a small greenhouse.

Why tie up cucumbers

Cucumbers are a tropical vine growing in our climate only in the warm season and exclusively as an annual plant. All experienced gardeners know that it is advisable to provide cucumbers with support for weaving. This is due to the fact that cucumbers weaving "in the open" in the garden will soon take up all the available space in their garden and begin to throw lashes on neighboring ones. Growing without control from the gardener, cucumber lashes can drown out peppers, tomatoes, dill, parsley or eggplant growing in the neighborhood.Since the cucumber is a vine, its stems in each internode have special antennae for attaching to supports. With the help of these antennae, the plant easily climbs to any height, tightly and firmly wrapping around the base (tree, staircase, house wall, fence) that comes across it. Cold weather stops this cucumber expansion with the onset of autumn: at a temperature of + 10 ° C, a tropical resident stops growing, and when the temperature drops below 0 ° C, it completely dies. If it weren’t for the frosts, one cucumber plant could braid the entire space nearby.

The antennae for attachment appear on the adult plant, and young cucumbers need to be tied to the gardener by hand to the supports. Inexperienced farmers are not sure whether to pick up cucumbers, but gardeners with experience do this without fail and always get a good harvest.

• Garter Benefits:
• space is saved in the garden;
• it is convenient to loosen the soil near the root system and spud the bushes;
• you can supply water directly to the roots of the plant by drawing a small longitudinal ditch or by laying out a drip irrigation tape at the foot of the plants;
• when watering, water and dirt do not fall on the leaves, which reduces the chance of a plant getting sick with fungal diseases;
• it is convenient to carry out the formation of lateral stems and regulate the load of the vine by the fruits;
• Harvesting is facilitated - all fruits hang in plain sight;
• when picking fruit, leaves and stems are not injured, which is very important, since the cucumber is a very fragile plant, and after 2-3 couplings, the stalk or leaves begin to dry out and die;
• it is convenient to carry out preventive or therapeutic treatment for diseases (by spraying drugs on the leaves).

Did you know? Cucumber contains a very important substance: tartaric, or dioxinosuccinic acid. This acid is important in that it prevents the conversion of carbohydrates from food into fat. That is why nutritionists add cucumbers to any menu for those who want to keep weight under control. This vegetable has extremely few calories, is a good diuretic and an excellent body cleanser (detoxifier).

Popular garter methods

Cucumbers can be tied in different ways. There are several well-established methods of garter, under which conditions such as access to harvest, moderate thickening and ease of care for plants are met. Each of these methods is described in detail below.

Vertically

This is a fairly old and still widespread method of fastening liana plants. Vertical garter is used both in open ground and in greenhouses.How to make a vertical garter:

1. In the lower part of the stem of the plant (usually between the second and first leaf) one end of a long rope is attached, which will serve in the future as a support for weaving cucumbers. Fastening the lower end of the rope is done in the form of a soft, not too tight knot. If you tightly pull the stem of a young plant, then the plant will cease to develop or will be stunted.
2. With the vertical method of tying, an upper rigid support is required, located at a height of at least 2 m (for street beds) or under the ceiling (for a greenhouse), for which the upper ends of the ropes will be fixed. For beds in the open ground, a L-shaped or U-shaped wooden (metal) structure is constructed as such a rigid support. Install it at the end of the bed so that the upper crossbar is perpendicular to the row of growing cucumbers. For the greenhouse, as an upper rigid bar to hold the cords along which the liana is woven, a thick steel wire is stretched (perpendicular to the rows with cucumbers) under the ceiling.
3. This method is convenient in that the gardener will not need to spend long hours regularly tying the stems of the plant to the support, it will be enough to scroll the central stems of the cucumbers once a week around a horizontally stretched rope. When the plant reaches the upper crossbar, on which the support cords are fixed, the gardener (optionally) pinches the main stem to stop the growth of the cucumber or carefully throws the main lash through the upper crossbar so that the further growth of the plant is directed to the ground.

Video: vertical garter of cucumbers

Important! The procedure for scrolling an overgrown cucumber stem around the twine with the vertical method of tying should be carried out as carefully and accurately as possible. Haste or negligence can lead to the breaking of the stem or shedding of flowers and small fruits from the plant.

Horizontally

Gartering cucumbers in a horizontal way is the most time-consuming and easy to do, it requires very few materials. This method is suitable not only for cucumbers, but also for other climbing crops (beans, peas).In order to make a horizontal garter after a while, you must first take care of the correct location of the plants in the garden. A single cucumber row is located along the center of the bed from edge to edge, or two rows of plants are sown parallel to each other, with a distance between rows of at least one 50–70 cm. Moreover, the distance between each row and the side edge of the bed should not exceed 15–20 cm.

Horizontal garter:

1. At the edges of the beds 4 high metal pipes or 4 wooden poles are buried. Their height is limited only by the desire of the gardener, but should be at least 1.5 m.
2. All 4 columns are wrapped around the outer perimeter with a metal wire or strong rope so that there is a gap of 35–40 cm between each turn.
3. Further, care for the cucumbers growing inside the fenced perimeter will be usual (loosening, watering, processing from pests, harvesting). From time to time, the gardener needs to refuel lashes growing and knocking out outside the garden bed inside the fence. The scourges, the height of which exceeded the height of the fenced perimeter, are thrown through the upper turn of the wire, in the future they are allowed to grow outside the perimeter, hanging upside down.

Video: horizontal garter of cucumbers

Important! It is difficult for a person caring for cucumbers to penetrate with a chopper inside such a “laced” bed for weeding soil from weeds. To facilitate the maintenance of the garden bed with a horizontal garter, it is recommended to fill the entire surface of the garden bed with mulch: last year's half-ripened leaves, mowed grass, humus, sawdust of trees (not spruce species). Mulch will not only prevent the growth of weeds, but will not allow moisture to evaporate from the soil, and the root layer will always remain wet.

To the grid

20 years ago, farmers were forced to use fishing and home-made nets, as well as strings and other improvised tools that were randomly stretched and intertwined on a wooden frame, as the nets for tying cucumbers. Now in agronomic shops in a large assortment they sell nets for garter cucumbers with different cell diameters.The grid is fixed on a rigid U-shaped structure made of wood or metal. The mesh fixing for weaving vines on the U-shaped frame is carried out along the end parts and along the upper edge. The mesh support wall is installed so that the cucumber row is in front of it. The distance between the net and the plants should be no more than 10-15 cm.

Such a grid is very convenient:

• cucumbers weave along it on their own, clinging to the cells with antennae; they can be optionally not tied;
• the crop is well exposed, the fruits are convenient to collect;
• with careful use, the net can be used for 2–4 garden seasons.

On the trellis

Tapestry is one of the oldest ways to tie weaving plants. The trellis looks like a U-shaped or H-shaped design with transverse fasteners in the form of rigid thin crossbars. The tapestry can be assembled using metal welding, or the main part of the structure (side racks and the upper crossbar) is made of wood, and the full-length transverse fastenings are made of metal wire.The length of the structure is arbitrary and is selected depending on the length of the bed. A trellis for 1 or 2 plants can look like an ordinary staircase up to 1 m wide and of arbitrary height, dug in the ground with its legs. Some craftsmen make a folding trellis, which can be assembled at any angle, and its length in assembly can be made of any length, depending on the task.

Did you know? At the time of the Roman emperor Tiberius, cucumbers were first grown in the winter, as Vladyka wanted to see these vegetables on his table all year round. Under it, special wheeled greenhouses were invented: for a day they were transported to the street, closer to sunlight, and at night they rolled back to a warm room.

To the fence

As a support for cucumbers, you can also use such familiar structures in a household farm as fences. Of course, it is better if the fence is made of metal mesh, but you can also use an ordinary wooden fence, on the upper part of which rope supports are fixed - a cucumber will curl over them in the future. Rope supports are not tied to a metal mesh, since rigid through cells will be enough for weaving cucumbers.To make the experience a success, it is recommended to use fences, one side of which faces south, southeast or southwest. This arrangement of the fence will provide the plants with good lighting, and in the case of a wooden fence, it will also serve as a windproof shield from the cold northerly winds.

Cucumber seeds are sown (or planted cucumber seedlings by transshipment) at a distance of 20-25 cm from the fence. This distance between the fence and the plants will make it possible to weed and loosen the cucumber rows without interference.

Pyramid

For 20 years, as inventive gardeners, they came up with and practice growing cucumber pyramids. This is a rather ingenious invention, not only simplifying the garter of weaving plants, but also giving the opportunity to get a crop of very early cucumbers. In early spring, a plastic film is fixed on the basis of the future pyramid, and a miniature, but very effective greenhouse is obtained.How to do it:

1. A piece of polyethylene film “sleeve” is purchased at a hardware store, that is, a double, seamless film. Sleeve width - 1.5 m. When a piece of film is straightened, a hollow polyethylene cylinder is in the hands of the gardener. You can take any length of a polyethylene sleeve, but in this case it is proposed to use a piece with a length of about 2.5–2.7 m. This length is due to the fact that 30–40 cm of the film in the lower part of the pipe will later be covered with soil, about 20 cm in the upper parts of the sleeve will be connected by a bundle, and the remaining polyethylene gap between them will be used as a greenhouse.
2. A round bed with a diameter of 1.5 m is dug up in the sunny and protected from the north winds of the site and a wooden or metal pole 2–2.2 m high is set exactly in the middle - this is the basis and support of the future cucumber pyramid.
3. The polyethylene sleeve is straightened and the resulting transparent cylinder is put on a dug pole. They are straightened along the perimeter of the excavated area, after which the lower edge of the polyethylene pipe is dug with soil to a depth of 30-40 cm.
4. Cucumbers are sown along the outer edge of the circle inside the resulting greenhouse, retreating 20 cm from polyethylene. The distance between the plants is approximately 25 cm. The seeds sown are covered with soil and watered with warm water.
5. The polyethylene pipe is neatly straightened to the top and assembled around the top of the pole, after which it is tied with a wire or rope. The knot is not made too strong, since in the future it will often be untied to ventilate the mini-greenhouse and water the seedlings.
6. After 3-4 weeks, when it gets warmer on the street and the need for a plastic film disappears, it is carefully removed and put away for storage until the next season.
7. A small wooden peg (15–20 cm) is stuck next to each plant, to which a strong thin rope is tied. Its length should be enough to be fixed in the upper part of the central pole. In the process of growth, cucumber lashes must be wound around the rope supports weekly.
8. The inside of the soil circle of the cucumber pyramid is mulched with sawdust or last year's foliage (humus), further care of the plants will be normal, but without weeding (only watering, picking fruit). It is easy to grow cucumbers on such a pyramid, the fruits are always clean, dry and clearly visible, which is convenient for picking.

Sowing in a pyramidal polyethylene greenhouse begins in early spring, but not earlier than 10 days after its construction, this will allow the soil to warm up. Seeding dates for cucumbers for central Russia vary between April 15–25.

Did you know? Cucumbers contain lignans: laricirezinol, pinoresinol and secyolalaricresinol. When these substances enter the human body, they reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer, including cancer of the breast, ovary, colon and prostate gland.

Arc shaped

Garter to the U-shaped or L-shaped trellis requires skill in their construction. Not all gardeners can boast of carpentry skills, so some craftsmen apply the garter of cucumbers to arcs. Such arcuate supports are made from bent sections of very thick wire or thick, well-bent willow branches. It should be taken into account that usually the width of the supporting arc of wire or wooden branches is enough for 3-4 plants.The diameter of the resulting semicircle depends on the length of the used piece of wire or branch. If the cucumber row is long, set as many arcs as needed.

How to make an arc:

• a piece of wire with a length of 3–3.5 m is bent until it takes the form of a regular arc;
• an arc-shaped support is installed parallel to the arrangement of a number of cucumbers at a distance of 15–20 cm from the plants;
• near each plant a peg is driven in, a twine is tied to it, the upper part of which is fixed on an arch-mount.

Unusual methods of garter cucumbers

More and more new ideas from gardening enthusiasts make us take interest in the excitement of ordinary cucumber cultivation. Among summer residents, methods such as growing cucumbers in barrels or forming a plant in the form of a cucumber tree were widespread.

Growing and garter cucumbers in a barrel:

1. In the fall, the barrel is filled up to half with a mixture of twigs, last year's leaves, fresh manure, humus. All this is watered, and with the last, top layer, they lay garden fertile soil so that its surface is 20 cm below the side of the barrel.
2. In early spring, the contents of the barrel are poured with water, 2 arches up to 1 m high are inserted crosswise into the upper part of the soil. Arcs can be made of willow branches or wire. A small piece of transparent plastic film is spread over the top of the crossed arcs and secured around the barrel with a rope or wire. It turns out a greenhouse.
3. Within 10 days, the earth in the barrel will warm up, after which the film is removed and the cucumber seeds are sown in warm soil. After sowing, the plastic film is returned to its place and again firmly fixed around the barrel.
4. When the cucumbers rise, the film is removed daily from the greenhouse for airing for several hours, and returned back at night.
5. When the warm weather finally settles, the polyethylene is finally removed. In the center of the barrel, a tall wooden or metal pole is installed, to which ropes for weaving cucumber plants will be tied. An individual rope support is provided for each cucumber, mounted on a peg stuck at the foot of the plant.
6. The growing lashes of the cucumber should be regularly directed towards the rope supports and manually wound around them.

Did you know? The tonic properties of cucumber are used in the cosmetic industry: it is included as a main ingredient in lotions, tonics, face and hand creams. Fashionistas use pieces of fresh cucumber as a mask for delicate skin around the eyes. Absorbing cucumber juice, after 10–15 minutes, the skin of the subglazes becomes elastic and smooth.

Cucumber tree:

1. Such an original garter can only be done in a greenhouse, the design of which allows you to pull the wire under the ceiling in different directions. It must be remembered that such a large and branched plant requires enhanced nutrition. Even provided that the planting pit is initially well seasoned with organics, during the growing season it is necessary to do root and foliar top dressing in order to get a good harvest.

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   The side cucumber lashes, which have grown before the appearance of 2-3 true leaves, are slightly stretched in different directions with the help of rope twine. As they grow, they are wrapped around these ropes.
2. From 10 to 15 stepsons are left on one cucumber plant, on each of which an individual rope fastening is strengthened. All ropes are directed to the side and slightly up in different directions with respect to the central trunk.
3. Simultaneously with the formation of the plant, all antennae are cut off on it. If this is not done, the mustache clings to adjacent lashes and weaves them into a single whole, preventing the access of air and light to the leaves.
4. At the end of the formation, the cucumber looks like a powerful tree with strong branches, on each of which many fruits grow.
5. The lashes that have reached the top of the greenhouse are thrown through a wire under the ceiling and directed to grow down. You can also let them out through the window in the ceiling onto the street - let them grow there.

Possible mistakes

When constructing a structure for gartering cucumbers with ignorant gardeners, mistakes are sometimes made that would be better to avoid.

Common mistakes:

1. The height of the trellis or mesh is not enough for cucumbers that quickly outgrow it.
2. Too many plants per 1 sq. Km. m support (recommended no more than 2–4 pieces).
3. With a horizontal garter - 2 rows of cucumbers growing in parallel along the beds are located at a close distance in relation to each other, as a result of which the selected space is very quickly braided and creates a shading.
4. Trellis too long with weak side racks - it is possible to fall with a strong wind along with plants weaving along it.
5. Too close proximity of 2 high trellises being adjacent (parallel to each other) - this will create shading, cucumbers will not receive good lighting and will lag behind in growth.

It is most reasonable to grow cucumbers by tying them to some support (grid, trellis, pyramid). This will help keep the capricious tropical vine clean, dry and avoid such troubles as powdery mildew, which will provide the gardener with an excellent crop of crisp cucumbers.