Outdoor ridge cucumbers

I'm going to find as good a sunny spot as I can and grow them up a cane tepee. First time I've grown them, though.

 

All veg (there probably are exceptions though ...) want full sun.

I'd keep large/thin leaved plants, like Cues, out of the wind.

 

Cues have nice fibrous roots, they'll benefit from steadily potting on and make a nice, massive, productive rootball ready for the rest of the season.

Fragile stems though, so potting-on when they are several feet tall is a bit of a challenge!

Thought: I wonder if I should pot on initially (say from 9cm to 1L) and put a string under the rootball, so that the roots grow into / around it at the 1L stage. Potting on to 2L is probably still easy (plant not too big by then). Beyond that it would probably be possible to hold the plant by the "string" (i.e. right-way-up), knock the pot off the rootball - so it falls to the floor - and then lower the plant, using the string-handle, into the new, bigger, pot.

 

(Came from something I saw on Beechgrove where they suggesting "planting" the bottom of the training string "under" the Tomato plant, so that as it rooted the bottom of the string was secure. Seemed like a good idea to me (better than tying to the base of the plant, as I have always done ...)

 

It works up to the point that the string rots thru & snaps, so its best to use 5ply twine, which should last the season.

Im trying Gherkins this year - seem to have flowers & small fruit already which is a good sign.

 

I really need to do that anyway as the twine I use, all above ground, rots through and dumps several of the plants on the ground before the end of the season anyway!! Perhaps a short piece of something more robust (baller twine??) in the planting, and then whatever twine tied to that for the climbing-training-support - or am I over-complicating it? ... again??

 

Actually ... by the time the plant is "big" do I care that the base of the strong rots through? I don't think it will untwine by that time, whereas the twine breaking somewhere in the middle / higher up will definitely "dump the plant" :(

 

I think that I found I could tie the bottom of the twine off around the base of the plant as it had gotten to the stage where it wasnt going to get much bigger - but if I hadnt noticed that it had gone slack it probably would have dumped the plant on the floor when I wasnt looking.