Types of cucumber beds + advantages and disadvantages of each of them: note to the summer resident!

Even an aspiring gardener can get an excellent crop of cucumbers, especially if he pays attention to some important nuances, the first of which is preparing the correct garden.

Different types of cucumber beds

For good growth and development, cucumbers need soil rich in organic matter, so when arranging the beds for growing this vegetable, humus, grass, branches, food waste and other organics are introduced into it. Such additives not only improve the nutritional value of the soil, but also generate heat during decomposition.

Natural heating of the soil sterilizes it, kills pathogenic bacteria and many pests.

The introduction of organic matter is the main condition when arranging a place for planting cucumbers. The beds can be deep and tall, warm and ordinary, hanging and multi-stage. Among gardeners, the following types of ridges are especially popular:

• warm;
• dung;
• vertical
• mobile.

The shape of the beds depends entirely on your imagination: they can be made square, rectangular, round, in the form of a trapezoid, in the form of any objects, animals

Warm bed for cucumbers

This version of the garden allows you to start picking greens 2-3 weeks earlier than with the usual soil beds, and even get ahead of the greenhouse relatives in terms of harvesting time. There are several types of warm beds:

• buried. It is being built in a trench. Such a bed slightly rises above the ground level or is located flush with it. The soil on the buried bed does not dry out for a long time, therefore, if you do not have the possibility of frequent watering of the garden, you should opt for this variety;
• high or raised. It is built in the form of a box. It warms up faster and is ideal for gardens that are flooded with floods in spring or suffer from excess moisture during the season.

The construction scheme of the buried warm ridge consists of the following stages:

1. They dig a trench up to a meter deep and about a meter and a half wide.
   

   A fertile layer of excavated soil is used in the further formation of the ridge

2. A drainage layer is laid on the bottom of the prepared pit. It can consist of large dry branches, tree roots, logs, strong stems of plants, that is, large, coarse, long rotting waste.
   

   A high-quality drainage layer is necessary on clay soils or in areas with water standing close to the surface

3. Organic matter is placed on top of the drainage: humus, compost, food waste (cleaning, food debris) and plant debris (tops, leaf litter). Please note that only healthy wastes that are not damaged by plant diseases and pests can be used. So that juicy, moist raw materials do not stick together, it can be layered with straw.
   

   When laying, each layer is recommended to be compacted and spilled with warm water.

4. Organics are carefully watered with water with the addition of Baikal EM. It contains microorganisms that accelerate the process of converting organic waste into a form accessible to plants.
5. The bed is closed with a film and left for a week under cover.
6. After 7 days, the bed is compacted and 15-20 cm of soil mixed with compost is poured on top of the organic matter.
7. Again, cover with a film and leave for another week, after which they begin to sow cucumbers.

When arranging a warm bed on the surface of the soil, the sequence of actions will be the same, but to maintain the shape of the ridge, it is recommended to build a box from boards or slate scraps.

It is more convenient to work with raised warm beds - there is no need to bend too far to care for cucumbers and when harvesting

Advantages and disadvantages of a warm bed

The service life of a warm bed is not limited to one year and is 4-5 years. Cucumbers are recommended to be grown on such a bed no more than two years in a row, and then it can be used for vegetables that are less demanding on nutrition. In addition, a warm bed has the following advantages:

• with its help, garden and household waste are naturally disposed of;
• cucumbers are less likely to be affected by pests and diseases (subject to the rules of the organization of the ridge);
• the soil quickly warms up;
• fewer weeds grow on the bed;
• The design is convenient for watering and weeding.

The main disadvantage of arranging a warm bed is that its construction requires certain physical and material costs.

Video: what are warm beds for cucumbers

Manure bed

To grow a thermophilic vegetable on cold and heavy soils that need high-quality heating, it is recommended to equip manure beds. They are being built as in the early spring, but certainly on thawed land, since under the manure the land will not be able to warm up for a long time.

For equipping the ridge it is best to use horse manure. When decomposed, it maintains a high temperature (within +70 degrees) for more than a month, enriches the soil with the elements necessary for feeding cucumbers and carbon dioxide.

The construction of the ridge is carried out as follows:

1. A shallow (up to 40 cm) trench is prepared.
2. At the bottom lay a twenty-centimeter layer of manure. From it you can build the walls and partitions of the beds.
   

   Considering that the heat generated by biofuel can burn the roots of cucumbers, they build walls, the bottom and partitions from it, and inside the garden the bed is filled with compost and fertile soil

3. Organics are shed with warm water with the addition of a small amount of potassium permanganate.
4. The manure layer is numbed with wood ash.
5. The garden soil is mixed with compost in a ratio of 1: 1 and the bed is filled from the inside. A layer of safe soil must be at least 30 cm.
6. The bed is covered with a film. Warming will contribute to the rapid heating of the beds and will initiate the process of decomposition of the dung layer.
7. After a week, you can sow cucumber seeds or plant seedlings on a manure bed.

If the structure is additionally insulated, covered with plastic wrap, then even in the northern regions you can get an early crop of cucumbers

Vertical bed for cucumbers

This version of the garden is suitable for gardeners with a small plot of land. The vertical bed for cucumbers can be built in various ways. One of them is the use of trellis structures, which allow cucumber vines not to spread along the ground. Trellis can be vertical along the entire length of the prepared ridge or arranged in the form of a wigwam on round beds with a diameter of about a meter.

The construction of a rounded vertical ridge:

1. Layering of layers is organized according to the principle of a warm ridge.
2. A tall peg (1.5-2 m) is driven into the center of the garden, at the top of which they fix twine segments according to the number of planned number of cucumber bushes.
3. The ends of the twine with hooks or small pegs are fixed along the edge of the beds.
4. Cucumber seeds are sown around the circumference at a distance of at least 25 cm from each other. Growing up, the cucumbers will climb up the support, and soon the bed will become like a green pyramid.

Photo: trellis options for vertical bed equipment

The undoubted advantage of vertical beds are the following:

• they are decorative. With proper accuracy of execution, this design brings a touch of attractiveness and unusualness to the design of the site;
• occupy a small area;
• require minimal tillage and plant care;
• easy to move, complement, rebuild;
• it is convenient and easy to collect greens from them, without turning over and without damaging the cucumber vines;
• the almost complete absence of contact of leaves and stems of the plant with the ground, as well as good ventilation, avoids many cucumber diseases.

It should be borne in mind that with a vertical arrangement of cucumber lashes, a vegetable needs more fertilizer. In particular, the need for phosphorus increases by 20-30%. Also vertically located plants require more moisture due to the drying effect of the sun and wind.

Step beds

The variety of vertical beds include convenient and popular among gardeners step or multi-tiered structures, which involve the placement of several beds on top of each other:

1. First, a large bed is created, usually of a square shape.
2. On top of it is built another smaller area.

Such a structure can be created using metal strips, border tape, ordinary boards. It should be borne in mind that a stepped bed can be unevenly lit by the sun, therefore, for the cucumbers, the most illuminated part of the ridge is selected, and plants less demanding in light are planted in other areas (onions, parsley, celery).

Almost all plants develop and bear fruit much better when grown not on a monocultural (consisting of plants of exactly one species) bed, but "in company" of several types of compatible crops

Mobile beds for cucumbers

The advantage of a mobile garden bed is that it can be built in any illuminated corner of the plot without digging the soil. It is easiest to equip such a bed in any tank according to the principle of a warm bed. It is prepared in early spring, about a month before the cucumbers are planted, so that the organics begin to decompose, mature and become nutritious soil for planted plants a month and a half before sowing.

The advantages of growing cucumbers in bags, barrels and other containers:

• the roots of the plant will not be damaged by the bear;
• with proper watering, plants are less susceptible to fungal diseases;
• from a small plot you can harvest no less than from a full-fledged garden;
• convenience and simplicity in caring for plants, in harvesting;
• early ripening of greens.

It is better to take a bag thicker, from under sugar, for example, since polyethylene tears from the sun

You can build a mobile bed in a wooden container on wheels. It is preferable to cover the inside of the case with a film - this will save the wood from rapid decay, and drainage drains should be arranged in the bottom. The wheels must be strong to support the weight of soil and plants, while maintaining mobility of movement.

The location of the mobile container can be adjusted during daylight hours by turning or moving it with the desired side to the sun

Using mobile beds, you can set up a garden anywhere in the garden, quickly change the space, using such structures as partitions, zonal additions.

On the fence, metal mesh or wall of the outbuildings, you can arrange a vertical bed for growing cucumbers by hanging plastic or wooden boxes, plastic bags filled with nutrient soil.

To organize mobile beds, you can use the items available in the house: old suitcases and bags, garden cars, old strollers, shopping baskets and even large children's trucks

The maximum return from the mobile garden can be obtained if part of the cucumber lashes will be directed upward along established arcs or poles, and part will freely creep down and spread along the ground.

Growing cucumbers on a mobile bed using a barrel saves time and space (one two-liter barrel replaces a 2-square-meter bed)

If a small capacity is used to equip a mobile garden, then the following difficulties must be taken into account:

• one cucumber plant needs at least 5 liters of nutrient soil;
• the soil in the tank will quickly dry out, so you need to water the cucumbers more often: not 2-3 times a week, but daily. The solution to this problem is the organization of drip irrigation or the use of hydrogel - special balls that absorb water during irrigation, and then gradually give it to plants. When using a hydrogel, it is pre-soaked for several hours, then mixed with soil. Next, make sure that at least 5 cm of land is still above this enriched layer. This is a prerequisite, since on the surface of the soil the agent will quickly dry under the influence of sunlight;
  

  Hydrogel is applied to the soil, mixtures, composts and any other substrates used for growing plants

• cucumbers will quickly draw out nutrients from a small amount of soil, therefore, plant nutrition will need to be carried out twice as often.

Video: growing cucumbers in a barrel

Of course, you can not bother, and grow cucumbers in an ordinary garden. But if you want to increase the yield of this useful and necessary vegetable, save space on the site or just experiment, then be sure to arrange any of the recommended ridges!