Growing Cucumbers in the City

Disclaimer: I had no idea what I was doing last year when I planted these cucumbers. It was a 'learn as you go' type of experience!

Week 1-2

I planted my cucumber seeds on April 20th and by April 30th, they sprouted into very small seedlings. You can see them poking out of the dirt in the top container, second column from the left.

Week 3

By week 3, some of the seedlings dropped their seed shell and started opening up their first set of "false leaves". I had moved them out to the greenhouse on the balcony by this point.

Week 7

The true leaves of the cucumber plant started getting really big and felt fuzzy to the touch. They are the 3 plants in the front in the rightmost column.

Week 9

The seedlings were quickly outgrowing their initial pots and started shading other plants in the greenhouse so I figured it was time to move them to the great outdoors. At the time, I thought this teepee-style trellis was a good idea... but later learned that was not nearly enough!

Week 10

Cucumber tendrils appear as the young plants start settling in! They begin grabbing onto the trellis and stretching out towards the sun.

Week 11-12 : Hello Flowers!

This is when we started experiencing major growth spurts which I think is due to a combination of the weather and larger soil area which can now absorb and hold more water.

Week 15

We took a summer vacation and came back to a tangled mess. The plants had started grabbing onto their neighbors and all of the leaves were getting very crowded. I separated them from each other and built a larger trellis as seen below. The leaves looked a bit droopy after aggressive manual intervention so I was worried.

Week 17 - Fruits of our LAbor

Despite the previous manual handling of the plants, they rebounded and actually started producing cucumbers! This was thanks to a single lonely bee that somehow ended up on our 27th floor balcony and some very tedious pollination by hand using an old eyeliner brush of mine. I am just gazing at my cucumber in awe in the last photo.

Week 18 & Beyond

The following weeks of summer were less exciting as we lost our single bee friend who helped with the pollination. We also experienced a powdery mildew attack on our cucumbers which I had a hard time battling. I have not planted any cucumbers this year yet but after writing up this post, I think I will go do that right now!