Cucumber Growing

Categories: Vegetable Growing

I have a piece of red so-called orange land which has produced excellent

wheat. Will you give information about its adaptability to cucumbers?

Are there pickle factories in the State which would demand them in

quantities, and is there much other demand for them? About when should

they be planted, and how much water would they need?



The cucumber needs a retentive soil which does not crack and bake, and

suc a soil is made by abundance of organic matter. Your orange soil,

unless heavily treated with stable manure and given plenty of time for

disintegration, would probably give you distressful cucumber plants, if

it has come right out of wheat-growing. Besides, cucumbers do not like

dry heat, even if the soil be kept moist by irrigation. Oranges will do

well under conditions not favorable to cucumbers. Cucumber plants must

come up after danger of frost is over. The amount of water they require

depends upon how moist the soil is naturally, and as the crop is chiefly

grown on moist river lands and around the bay, it is chiefly made

without irrigation. Such lands have a cucumber capacity equal to the

consumption of the United States, probably, and the pickle factories can

usually get all they can use at a minimum transportation cost.

Large-scale plantings should only be made by men who know the crop and

have definite information or contract for what they can get for it.